


Arrhythmia Rhythm

by SwordSoup



Series: Dream SMP fics that didn’t age well [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complicated Phil Watson, Complicated Technoblade, Crying TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dream is a not a good person, Heart Attacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, I think he's a fascinating character but I am not a Dream apologist, Illnesses, Jack Manifold Needs A Hug, Niki | Nihachu Needs a Hug, Not by blood and not really by adoption either, Pandora's Vault, Parent Sam | Awesamdude, Phil Watson Tries (Video Blogging RPF), Prison, Protective Cara | CaptainPuffy, Protective Sam | Awesamdude, Same with Techno, Scared TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Traumatized Tommyinnit (Video Blogging RPF), but the connection is there, dare i say, they love Tommy deep down but neither of them are perfect family members by a long shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordSoup/pseuds/SwordSoup
Summary: Tommy has never wanted to leave a place more. TnT shocks his bones, obsidian cold against his hands, lava sweltering, keeping him confined to Pandora's Vault, his hope already gone. There's no air to breathe nor room to be had, his lungs shrinking under the pressure of quickly contracting prison walls. Dream mocks him with the way he's still able to stand upright.No one ever said heart attacks were uncommon.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dream SMP Ensemble & TommyInnit, Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit
Series: Dream SMP fics that didn’t age well [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189376
Comments: 183
Kudos: 952
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ha! So! I am not super caught up on the Dream SMP right now, but I desperately had to write something about this whole situation. And sure, maybe my descriptions of heart attacks are a bit hand-wavy and dramatic, but I suppose it was the same when Schlatt did it too. Tommy may be a teenager, but this is also a magical Minecraft roleplay universe, so I think heart attacks aren't necessarily off the table.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.
> 
> (Also, yes, I'm aware this is much shorter than what I normally write. There is more to come. I promise.)

He’d been shouting for Phil for about five minutes when he went quiet. Rhythmic, repetitive, clearly a futile pursuit — Philza has never worked for the prison. Even when he intersperses his calls for his pseudo father with calls for Sam, it’s useless, the half-creeper absent, Dream the only living being around for miles that can answer. Tommy’s cheeks are streaked with his terror, his eyes wide. He slumps up against a wall and goes silent, a name dying on his lips, knees locked to his chin. Dream stands in the corner, leaning up against his lectern, and smiles.

“Please, Tommy,” he says quietly, hands looping beneath the lectern and boosting him off. The boy’s breath hitches, his legs slide out, splaying before him, hands shaking where they clutch at his cloak. Dream does nothing else but smiles, standing there. “Let’s not make this week more painful than it needs to be.”

Tommy lets out a rattling laugh. “You make  _ everything _ painful.”

Dream takes a step towards him, his smile widening a fraction. “And you make everything  _ right.  _ I’m not sure why you hate me so much, Tommy. We were so…  _ close,  _ at Logstedshire. Past discs. Past games.” The air shivers with molten heat as Dream walks past Tommy, standing and facing the wall of orange-yellow lava, dropping down and sometimes, when he leans close enough, singing the fabric of his clothes. Dream grins to himself, and Tommy continues to breathe, a low moan breaking forth and his head hanging. “What did I do to make you resent me so much?”

“Everything. E- Everything.”

TnT sounds outside the obsidian walls of Pandora’s Vault. It’s distant, like thunder, accompanied by a low, creaking groan. Tommy matches its noise with a soft, wounded noise, tucking his head further between his knees. He brings a hand up and clutches at the front of his shirt, seemingly using great effort to breathe at all.

“No, Tommy. I haven’t.  _ You  _ are the culmination of your issues. No one is responsible for how you feel. Not me, not Wilbur, not even Tubbo. You  _ are yourself.”  _ Dream lets out a chuckle like a snake’s, low and smooth and given like an inside joke. Tommy’s chest heaves; he turns, toward the lava, toward the people who will not come to help him, and he screams.

_ “Sam!”  _ He says, voice starting to go raw. “Sam,  _ please!” _

“No one is-”

_ “Sam! Sam- Philza! Sam- Tubbo- Sam!”  _ Tommy shouts over and over, desperately calling and drowning out Dream’s voice. It’s to no avail. The elder man’s voice only rises in power, his laughter growing louder. “Oh  _ God-” _

“You’re looking at him,” says Dream, as he turns away from the lava. He crouches down beside Tommy and smiles, so wide, cold, his hands raised in a gesture of submission. Tommy jerks his head back and clutches at his neck, his other hand occupied with half tearing his hair out. “Settle down, Tommy. There’s no way out for you. It’s only a  _ week.  _ How long did you spend in Logstedshire?”

“Leave me alone,” is all he answers. He moans something unintelligible and grabs at his arm, clutching it close to his chest. Wet tear tracks shudder down his face, lit orange by the flames beside him. Tommy sweats buckets as he lurches to the side, desperately moving away from Dream, who quickly follows.  _ “Sam!” _

There’s a long pause. Blood rushes in Tommy’s ears, adrenaline and fear and  _ pain  _ striking him over and over. His ribs feel like they’re bursting out of his chest, his skull being squeezed through his ears and out of his eyes. Dream is talking, but his voice is low, something Tommy knows is a lie -- but he can’t help trying to listen anyways. And- and oh  _ god,  _ his head hurts, the left side of his body feeling like someone has tied it up with rope and started to hammer it, breaking his bones, breaking his mind. 

Everything is burning. His vision is white. His arm is set ablaze, and it smells it too. He can taste something in the air, like a campsite put out by a hasty bucket of water, or TnT thrown over a wall and into your home- or-

Or like burnt toast.

Tommy’s eyes roll up into his head as his heart falls to a thudding stop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH oH- I dropped my entire heart on the floor holy shit my love is going everywhere oh god-
> 
> I cannot thank you all enough for how much support the first chapter of this got!!!! I NEVER expected anyone to be interested in this, but holy shit. You are all so, so kind. The kudos, the comments,,,,, erg, I love it! I appreciate all of it so much even if I haven't had a chance to respond back. I hope this second chapter is as good as the first! I thought about ending it in this one but I'm starting to realize this might just be longer than I originally expected.  
> -  
> Just one warning for this chapter: At some point, Sam comes to the realization that "Dream loves Tommy." This is NOT in a romantic way. Dream really does have like, a horrible love of manipulating Tommy. He sees him as a plaything, not a friend. I hate that I even have to say this, but: This is a ship free zone. Blegh. Gross.

“I need to find out what’s happening first.”

That’s what Sam tells himself. He leaves Tommy in the cell and goes to recruit Ant and Bad, working as quickly as he can so that he can  _ investigate.  _ It hurts to leave his ally within the Vault, but there’s simply nothing else to be  _ done.  _ He ignores the messages, ignores the screams, ignores it all and he  _ hopes.  _ Dream cannot do anything to hurt Tommy -- unless he’s planning to shove him into lava -- but Sam can’t help but shake for the fear of it all. He knows better than anyone, as a half-creeper, the importance of waiting and watching. He utilizes it now, calming his worry and working as professionally as he’s ever done. It doesn’t matter that beneath it all, an undercurrent of worry still jackhammers his pulse.

“I need to find out what’s happening first,” he says, a day later, after managing to repair the damage to the prison. Bad and Ant have done their duties faithfully, whether they’re a bit seedy or not. He doesn’t have any other choice but to trust them -- his only other allies are busy, mechanic, or currently locked up inside the prison he is tasked with fixing. Blackstone and obsidian lie heavy in his hands as he digs into the chunks of displaced metal and stone, mask down to hide the hurried look in his eyes. He has yet to find who has  _ done  _ this damage, but what with the egg, the hotel, and his own secrets? It’s a bit of a surprise to him that someone  _ hasn’t  _ attempted to break Dream out yet. 

The Warden stands faithful in the prison, keeping everyone safe and contained. Nook stays at the hotel and worries and waits, watching as Jack fiddles with Tommy’s construction. Sam, for all of his ego, for all of his know-how and maturity, rebuilds, and hopes, both for Tommy’s safety and Dream’s security.

“I need to know what’s happening first.”

He moves through the prison at all times of day, pressing buttons and checking walls, nodding to Ant and Bad when he actually sees them. They lurk about corners, searching for things he knows they might not be meant to find. But, he also knows that Warden will kill them without hesitation. It is his prerogative. And, so Sam works without fear of his former friends, adding new defenses and new guards, trusting them in turn. Sam welds metal and sets Redstone, a hiss to his words and his skin restless. 

Sam worries.

He’s never been the type to be exceptionally close with many. Bad and Ant have been his allies for quite some time. But the egg, in all its glory, is clearly where they place their allegiance now. And Sam? Is left behind. The Egg is dangerous and sickly, a plague on the world and a venom against all that he intends to defend. He’d come in contact with it before, the infection spreading until he didn’t know  _ who  _ to trust. 

Dream, too, had once been someone he’d trusted. A passing ally, someone to lean on for a moment or two. That moment quickly ended as Dream became a powerful enemy, his mere existence a threat to the small things that Sam continued to care for. 

Puffy, too, has been someone to keep close of late. But Puffy is angry at him now -- as is Tubbo, both of them enraged at his decision to keep Tommy in the prison. He can’t even blame them. He isn’t happy either.

Sam has always found allegiance in his tech and his animals, not those around him. Humanoids are complicated and messy, and there is a reason he is so good at what he does. 

But in comes  _ Tommy.  _

Tommy. Nothing more than a child, dragging behind him his friends and his family, stealing for a living and building countries with his bare hands. He is feisty and more than a bit rude, coming off as downright abrasive at times. But Sam, god- _ dammit,  _ just sees potential. He sees a child, broken by his childhood and growing up in a land where monsters roam free, and he can’t help but wish to help. So he does, whether against his better judgment or not. The Warden would certainly disagree with how much importance Sam places on Tommy. Nook would agree then and tenfold, designed specifically to protect and to please the boy and his friends. But, in the end:

“I need to know what’s happening first.”

By the time he’s finally able to unlock the prison, it has been five days. Ant, Bad, and The Warden have been nearly silent through all of that time. He realizes he has spent all of these days nearly alone, working on mechanisms that haven’t failed yet, and for  _ what-  _

Sam progresses through the prison with hands that itch to create. He desperately wants to believe that he hasn’t just sentenced Tommy to bounds of more trauma, no matter how little the boy will tell him of his past. His hope is all he has left — hope that beyond everything, Tommy can prevail. Sam knows he can. He  _ has to.  _

The Warden greets him with a nod and a brief, unprogrammed grunt. As Sam casts about, he finds that his guards are nowhere to be found. The lights of the prison glow eerie and dark. They are familiar as they cast on Sam’s mask. 

(Red, though, creeps about the edges of his vision when he’s not paying attention. It slithers between cracks of obsidian, a low, hissing noise like plants over stone. When he looks at them he sees nothing at all.)

He has never thought of his creation as imposing. The Great Wall of lava separating him and his charges looms high above him now, and he greets it as his own. If recedes at his call and he nods at it, almost as if an old friend. It begins to move with the  _ ca-chunk  _ of machinery and The Warden standing behind him to watch. 

Sam looks forward at the cell as it comes into sight, his goal. He steps onto the moving platform before him, the Warden’s Will in his hand. It glares a shimmering purple, sweeping low with his strides as he mans the head of his own mechanical ship. Behind him, the Warden disappears to man the controls. Sam knows, should Dream act up, he will be killed as swiftly as those he imprisons. He accepts it as well.

“TommyInnit! Move to the water in the cell and await removal!” He shouts, peering out into the distance. The platform does not move or shift at all beneath his weight, but he can’t help but feel it is a flimsy barrier. He is a part creeper, and he knows the importance of silent moments. He knows how great stillness can be. It doesn’t calm him now, as his stoicism gives way to worry. After a moment, and no response: “TommyInnit, move to the water in the back of the cell.”

“Tommy isn’t awake right now.”

The voice runs a chill down Sam’s back. He stiffens, spine straightening, as he peers forward, catching a green-orange clad form, crouched low, as if over a person. For one, terrible moment, he thinks that Dream might have hurt Tommy. He thinks Sam he, the protector, he who builds and creates and  _ saves,  _ might’ve inadvertently  _ killed- _

No. He shakes his head and his fear dissipates. If Tommy had gone through his final death, there would’ve been pandemonium on the server. No matter how many enemies the boy has made, everyone would've reacted in some way or another.  _ Strongly.  _ And so Sam tries again, pulling his trident from his inventory and preparing for disaster.

“If the guest is asleep, wake him up.”

A pregnant pause. Dream lets out an unintelligible noise, and something shudders inside Sam when he realizes that it’s a laugh. And  _ god,  _ he does not fear Dream, not within an inch of his life, but that laugh does not bode well.

“That’s between him and the universe now, Sam. Tommy hasn’t been  _ up  _ since you left him here.” 

His gut flips and churns. Sam immediately gestures backward and out of sight toward The Warden, itching to throw his trident into his prisoner as he stares. Dream doesn’t move, save for a slow, lazy motion of his hand, and Sam writhes forward with anger as the platform begins to lurch.

It’s silent as he travels across the lava. His strides are purposeful and wide and  _ calm,  _ as he walks across the platform, but his mind is anything but. Sam barely quells his rage, churning deep inside of his gut and threatening to  _ explode,  _ liquid hot as deep as what billows out beneath him. His armor feels more like a cage as he rushes to leap into the cell, disregarding the last few feet of lava and jumping in. His body hisses, his lineage clear.

Dream is hunched over, his deeply scarred face half-concealed by the broken edges of his smiling mask. His green and orange ripples in the hot breeze that enters with Sam, the fabric only barely obscuring the figure beneath it. He bounces slightly on his heels in a way of greeting, but his hands are too occupied to wave. Too occupied with  _ Tommy. _

The boy lies, legs shoved to his chest and arms splayed out limply on the floor, eyes tightly shut. His breath comes in heavy, wheezing huffs, sounding more like that of a frightened animal than a teenager. He twitches, body trembling and moving around with erratic and unnatural movement. Dream’s hands run gently over the child’s chest in a gesture that looks almost kind, and Sam sees red.

_ “You,”  _ he spits, staggering forward and raising his trident. All he can see is the dark red magic flowing from Dream’s fingertips, seeping into Tommy’s chest. The boy’s fingers twitch; his breath rattles.  _ “You’ve finally killed him-” _

But Dream moves his hands away, and the result is instantly worse. Tommy’s breath keens upward into a broken thing, then stops entirely, his body shuddering once more before twitching, falling still. Sam stops in his tracks and conceals his terror behind his mask, watching as Dream’s face splits enough to mirror the expression of his mask. Then, a moment later, Tommy’s breath hiccups back to life, as the prisoner’s fingers start to trace his shirt once again.

“You left Tommy with me,” Dream says, voice quiet, something close to angry. Sam’s gut shudders and his breath catches, as he stands, frozen. “You left Tommy alone. And oh,  _ Sam,  _ he’d only just begun to trust you. Do you know how hard that is? How hard it is to get Tommy to  _ trust you?” _

His voice fades into something manipulatively bitter. Dream shakes his head, a low whistle falling from his lips.

“He couldn’t take the stress of it all. I didn’t even  _ realize --  _ he never was  _ this  _ similar to Schlatt.”

For a moment, Sam doesn’t understand. He hasn’t thought of Schlatt in a long time. The former president had died and that had been it, no further intervening needed.

But as Sam looks down… Tommy’s knees seem deliberately pressed to his chest as if trying to protect it. His lefthand twitches wildly, fingers moving spasmodically. 

Sam nearly drops his weapons as the words hit him. A  _ heart attack - _

The implications of it all are horrifying. He stutters in steps, finally allowing his disgust to show, unable to do anything to conceal it. Tommy’s gurgling breaths feel much more urgent, more terrifying, the way he twitches far more like a promise. His face is ashen and haunted and waxy, and Sam’s chest feels like it’s about to collapse under the weight of what he has done to a  _ child. _

“And- and you see, Sam? My power only operates on how much I have against you all. On how much power I hold  _ against you.  _ I’m not God. I’m not magic.” Dream shakes his head and lets out a laugh, hunched shoulders shaking. “I haven’t held anything above any of you. Not for a long time. My friend has seen to that.” Dream looks down at Tommy with an expression that is sickeningly fond. Sam is hit with the realization that Dream really,  _ truly,  _ cares for Tommy. In some sick and awful way, Dream  _ loves him.  _

“But I have Tommy, now, don’t I? And- I’ve even managed to take better care of him than you. He’s my leverage, now.” Dream suddenly pulls one of his hands away, the red magic twisting between his fingers. “It’s the only reason I’m able to do this, actually. In some ways, you’re lucky you’ve neglected your friend.”

It takes a moment for Sam to gather his breath. He steadies himself by counting the seconds, fingers stretching around his trident and grounding him to the material. The gauntlets on his hand shift to allow the movement, and he feels the netherite curl around his hands. Then, angry and cold:

“What do you expect to happen here, Dream?” He throws an arm out. “I let you escape? You take Tommy with you and run?” Sam’s eyes catch on the prone, shivering form of his ally on the floor. Tommy looks boney and thin and childish under the light of the lava, but he  _ cannot  _ let Dream escape. The Warden, as programmed, would kill him for it. And he would accept it.

Dream shrugs and sends him an almost pitying smile. “I expect you to do whatever you see best. You see, Sam: I’m the only thing keeping Tommy’s heart from stopping right here and now. It could…” Dream moves his hands back and Sam flinches, watching as Tommy’s chest stills, if only for a moment, before the prisoner replaces his hands. “You can do whatever you see fit. And, if that ends with someone’s blood on your hands…”

Dream shrugs. “Not my problem.”

Sam looks between Dream and Tommy. The younger has been left here for days of his allies doing, so carelessly forced to stay with his abuser, the trauma breaking him, doing more than it had to anyone other than an old, exhausted, miserable old man. Dream paces his heart with wicked hands stained in blood -- that of those  _ far _ past only  _ Tommy.  _ Dream is a mass murderer, a dictator, a traitor, an  _ abuser,  _ not hesitating to leave anyone out in the dust. He once held his entire world in his fist, where taps of his fingers made fissures, and a blink of his eyes made those who faced him scream. And Tommy…

Tommy’s just a child. A child the same as any other, orphaned, abandoned, abused. He is grounded in pain and in panic in ways that even Sam can’t know. He stared up at Dream, once upon a time, and he had not blinked when the elder had drawn a knife.

There are thousands of Tommys. 

There are thousands of Dreams.

And Sam makes a choice.

When Sam picks Tommy up off the ground, gently removing Dream’s hands from the boy’s chest, his heart seizes. Tommy jerks, a horrible noise coming from him, like the wheezy exhale of the dead. He twitches once, twice, more, hands clutching as his chest. Dream, still crouched on the floor, lets out a wounded noise of surprise. 

“Bring me back in,” says Sam into his communicator with his free hand, The Warden silent on the other end. Tommy bends like a twig, his back slotting into the jagged edges of Sam’s chest, his knees crooked over his arms, his head lolling back, deathly still. He still looks so horribly  _ frightened,  _ and whatever Dream says next is lost to the roar in Sam’s ears as he steps onto the platform, raising an enderpearl as best he can while still supporting Tommy’s corpse. His breath hitches, as he throws it, and as Dream lets out a scream.

The lava rises behind him. The Warden walks forward. His mechanical expression someone looks almost sorrowful, as Sam lies Tommy down on the ground, but he’s unable to hear anything but the lack of a heartbeat from the boy. Blood rushes in his ears. Someone, he thinks, might be crying, as softly as someone who does not wish to make a noise can. 

Tommy is dead. He is lying on the floor with an unmoving chest, and with unmoving limbs, and his chest as still as ice. When Sam slides a gauntlet off and presses it gently to the pulse point of the boy’s neck -- nearly blue in color, his lips a shade darker to match -- he finds that his skin is just as cold.

The Warden leans over Tommy’s corpse. His hands start to press and break. Sam watches, his knees folding downward as he watches, detached. In the background, Dream lets out another scream. Sam can no longer tell if it's in anger or grief.

“He’s gone,” says Sam. His hands fall back from the floor, sliding away to rest on his knees. The noises around him come back into a kaleidoscope focus, too loud, fractured in a way that hurts his head. He prays to  _ God --  _ to anyone, for he knows a God could not exist in a world like  _ this --  _ that Tommy, war casualty, the only one to face Dream and continue, up until he had died, a  _ child,  _ would have accepted Sam’s choice.

It’s misplaced optimism. Sam knows, above everything, that Tommy was recovering. The Tommy at his feet had not wanted to die. 

The Warden’s hands move up and down in jerky movements. Tommy’s chest sinks down; wrenches up in a mockery of breath. There is a cracking noise and a huff of frustration as another one of his bones breaks and The Warden worries. Sam is spiraling, past Tommy, past Dream, past the egg, for he had never wanted  _ this.  _ He’d been prepared to make this sacrifice should it come to it, to let  _ anyone  _ die, should they chance the release of his prisoner. Being faced with and making that choice…

Is far worse than imagining. And Sam? The fury in his chest prays that someday, he will be surveyor of Dream’s end.

Then-

A lurch. Something breaks, a wet, horrible,  _ snap,  _ and there is blood coming from somewhere and from a heart that had stopped four days ago. It’s foul and terrible, a disgusting reminder of what Sam has done. 

Sam looks over at the corpse of his son, and watches as Tommy’s chest begins to rise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO I know that this is all VERY hand-wavy. But! Hear me out! Dream really seems to derive all of his power from being supported and having leverage/things over other people in canon. Add a little bit of magic (seeing as I'm a firm believer in ambiguous non-human dream,) and the idea that Dream derives ACTUAL power from his leverage makes quite a bit of sense. I know that logically Tommy should be dead here, even after Sam comes and takes him out, but to that I say: I'm writing Minecraft roleplay fanfiction. Some things happen under extraordinary circumstances. Kachow. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> ALSO one last thing, about Sam and my knowledge of him: I know next to nothing about Sam. I did quite a bit of research! But I'm not sure if I really got his characterization down. I really, really hope that I did, but if something seems weird or out of character, feel free to tell me! (And yes, I know people speculate whether Sam Nook and The Warden are a part of Sam or parts he plays, but I like to think of them as his creations.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tommy pov arriving shortly.......... woot woot
> 
> I almost had Sam do like. An actual surgery for heart attacks. (Angioplasty is one of them) and then I realized that was perhaps just a BIT too much. So here, have implied surgery and whatever, hopefully it still makes sense! Suspension of belief is very helpful when you're reading about Minecraft characters lol

He categorizes his options as quickly as he can. There’s no time to lose or to wait: he knows that the first 90 minutes after a heart attack are the most crucial, and Tommy has been waiting for 7200 of them. The moment after the shock of the boy’s breathing wears off, he’s up and standing, tearing his communicator off his hip and searching through his options.

Ant and Bad are out for many reasons. The Warden must stay and do his job. Sam Nook, Tubbo, and Puffy needed to be contacted as soon as possible, but he isn’t sure how much they can  _ help.  _ Sam is not a surgeon and certainly hasn’t programmed his machines to be — they’ve only got baseline health and safety protocols. That leaves his safest bet — Philza, Ranboo, and Technoblade, the only people known to have access to Totems of Undying. If he can get to them, he might be able to assure Tommy’s safety.

But, above all, Sam prides himself in not being foolish. He knows what that group thinks of Tommy, disowned son and brother and all. He knows just how proficient in violence Technoblade is, and just how complicit Philza is in turn. So he hooks an arm under Tommy’s back and around his knees, getting ready to open his inventory as soon as he needs material. Sam has no hope but to try and save Tommy himself.

“Thank you,” he says to The Warden, who nods, face grim. “Tell Tubbo that Tommy will be in my base. Summon Sam Nook to my location on my word. Track it. Tell Sapnap to clear off or be ready to help me with a casualty.”

“Should I tell him who?” Asks The Warden with his hands behind his back, mask concealing what Sam has no doubt is an expression of wary concern. He cannot program sentience into his machines, but perhaps, they can find it on their own.

He considers the idea for a moment. Sapnap and Tommy have had a contentious relationship in the past -- who hasn’t really, in this world, where no one is ever truly safe -- but it is clear that the two can be allies when a cause brings them together. Weighing the consequences, Sam nods, waving a dismissive hand. If Sapnap decides to make trouble, he will have no trouble shutting it down. His home will  _ not  _ become a war zone. 

And then he’s off, shutting things down as he goes. The red vines seem hesitant to resurface as he half-runs down the halls, closing the vault and resetting his own mechanics while carefully balancing Tommy against his chest, only setting him down when his mechanics are too complicated to fiddle with. His communicator beeps several times, frantic messages not reaching him as he hurries toward the exit of his labyrinthian Vault. Tommy shudders at every movement, breathing labored, but he has ceased his endless twitches. Sam marks the stack of obsidian in his inventory as a gift of the Gods, and he makes a makeshift portal outside the prison, only feet away. The heat that starts to waft from within barely phases him, but he looks down at Tommy, brow crinkled in worry. 

He’s been stuck behind a wall of lava for a few days, Sam reasons. Swapping one hellscape for another should be a breeze. 

So he steps through the portal as confidently as he can, with very little more than a stumble as he meets empty air. There’s no patch of ground to link him to the rest now, and he sighs in annoyance, falling to a crouch. He balances Tommy’s head on his chest and slides his arm out from under the boy, throwing an enderpearl across a lake of lava and onto a nearby plateau. From there he lifts Tommy back up again — ignoring the soft groan he’s given in return, the ashen pale of his face growing brighter — and starts to run. Sam sprints through the barren land as if he knows it already, checking the coordinates scratched into the walls around him. It takes him nearly ten minutes to find any semblance of a recognizable structure, and he pearls over to a nether-path to make way towards his own. 

Time is ticking. There’s no way to check or to count, his focus entirely on  _ Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,  _ but he feels the seconds pass with each footfall. He finds his own portal in an amount of time that feels like  _ too much  _ and nothing else, bypassing his own safety measures in favor of heading through the portal. His communicator starts beeping the moment purple fades from his vision, near constant screaming indicating an incoming call. He ignores it and makes way to his water tunnel, bending over so he can free one hand once again. Tommy slides right between the panels of his chest plate, a precarious arrangement, sure, as he roots around in his inventory for a turtle helmet. Sam rips it out the moment it brushes his fingers, nestling gently into Tommy’s hair. The boy doesn’t move as his guide picks him back up, helmet on his head, unmoving still. Sam makes a swift move with his trident and holds his breath as they go lurching forward in the passage, praying that with a bit of Dolphin’s Grace in the air, the shock won’t kill Tommy outright. 

By the time the seconds to leave the passage pass, Tommy’s breathing has not changed at all. It is the same, wheezing shift of lungs, and Sam leaves the helmet on. Better to be careful he thinks, as he starts off for his base. Better to do all he can, he thinks, as he cups a hand against the back of Tommy’s wild hair, cradling the base of his skull and thinking about how delicate humans truly are.

His false base is empty and lifeless. His true base, upon entering, is nearly silent with dust, Sapnap either deep within or somewhere else. He scours it as the lights flicker on, a heavy aura only achieved by caves hanging in the air. Fran pads up to him in her gentle, old-dog sort of way, letting out a curious noise. He gently nudges her with his foot, and nods, smiling behind his mask as she lets him through with his bundle.

The sight of his dog comes with a pang of longing -- for normalcy, to sit next to Fran and watch things like the sunset rather than Tommy’s  _ pulse.  _ He wants to work on his contraptions, rather than try to fix a world and a system and the people within it when they’re all so inextricably  _ complicated. _ He presses on regardless. Sam will save Tommy if he does anything. He owes the boy that much at least.

He doesn’t have a room for  _ surgery --  _ never in a thousand years had he expected to be forced to do something like this -- but he finds his own former bedroom in hopes that it will work. It’s been left exactly as he wanted, with his belongings stripped from the walls and the only things left a work-table and a small first aid kit. When he’d made the move to live in the prison, he had known he would be away for quite some time.

Sam has become a hermit, he realizes, as he lies Tommy gently down on top of the desk, carding a hand through the boy’s hair absentmindedly as he pulls the bright green helmet there off. He doesn’t actually remember the last time he spent a night at his base for anything other than safety’s sake. But there are more important things to worry about now -- and Sam realizes, with a pang, that he left Tommy’s thing in his locker at the prison. If Tommy dies here, he will die in a foreign place with nothing of his own.

He hushes the thought. There is no time to agonize over could-be’s, he thinks, as he races into the foyer of his expansive base, searching through his chests for equipment. He shovels past diamonds and armor, Redstone and pickaxes and goggles and masks, rooting about until he finds a bottle of disinfectant. Next comes a tarp, old and weathered but unused, and a small pack of needles he’d bought to help him with a project once, years ago. He isn’t sure what else he needs -- but as a half-creeper, he’s always been at high risk of a heart attack, and  _ somehow,  _ he remembers something that might help. So, he pulls up his communicator and prepares. 

_ You have a library, correct, Tubbo? _

Sam doesn’t even bother to read the other hundreds of messages he’s been ignoring. Tubbo has clearly been busy, doing everything from cursing at or bargaining with Sam. Then, almost before his own message sends, another:

_ Where is Tommy! _

Sam can almost hear the fear -- the anger, too, -- in Tubbo’s voice, as he types, pacing as he waits.  _ With me,  _ he says, a huff to his breath.  _ I need a book to be able to help him. _

_ Help him?? What happened, Sam! _

_ He’s hurt. Badly. Find a book with information on medical science.  _

There’s about a six-minute pause. Sam finds his arms disconcertingly empty, and he checks the clock on the wall as he hurries past, finally realizing. It has been  _ forty minutes.  _ Forty added to 7200 too many, he reminds himself, as he runs back into his room and starts to disinfect what few things lie inside. He pulls off his armor. He finds an unstained apron -- a rare sight -- and tugs it over his clothes, hoping they’re clean enough. Then, he reaches to his face-

His mask.

His mask does  _ not  _ come off in front of other people. It has stayed on with his goggles and his armor and his netherite walls, so sure and safe on his temples that he sometimes finds himself dozing off with it firmly in place.

He rips it off and moves on. Tommy is more important than his antisocial tendencies.

When he finally gets a text back from Tubbo, it’s frantic, angry-sounding even with only a screen to convey it. Sam sighs heavily as he reaches out the door and into his discarded toolbelt, eyes flashing red as the communicator boots back on.

_ What sort of medical science _

_ Heart attacks,  _ he replies, apologetic. There’s a pause, slower than Tubbo’s been yet before.

_ What do you need to know? _

He sets his communicator to read to him as he prepares, hooking it up against a cracked tile in the wall. He hoists Tommy up and off of the table with a grunt, replacing him with half a bottle of disinfectant and the tarp, which gets a similar treatment. He sets the boy atop it as soon as it is sufficiently clean and slides his small collection of utensils on top.

A healing potion. A knife. Needles, and disinfectant, and- god, some shitty children’s band-aids he’d found in the bottom of one of his older trunks, because who knows what he might need. Tubbo continues feeding him materials and instructions and he goes off to find them, taking his communicator with him as he collects his things. He needs healing potions, and perhaps one for sleep, as well, along with any sort of non-lethal electrical current he might have, for emergencies. Then, with a pause, Tubbo informs him he needs to be able to see Tommy’s  _ arteries? _

Sam curses. He may be a Redstone genius, but he is  _ not  _ of strong magic. He doesn’t have the ability to look through someone like that, and even a partial invisibility potion can't help him here. So he settles for the next best thing. Spectral arrows, which show the faintest of outlines of someone’s insides, their arteries and skeletal structure and muscles, every bit of them alongside the outline of their full body. 

As soon as the idea forms, he races out of his base, ripping his trident out of his inventory without a care for how much he jostles. He is frantic, and panicked, as he sprints toward his nether portal, diving through the ocean and into the deep.

The pressure makes his ears want to burst. He is crushed, without his armor, his body threatening to fold under the weight. Sam continues regardless, leaping into the nether portal in an instant. He will not lose his ally, his friend -- he will not think of it, as he is faced with the sweltering heat of a burning hell. He yanks his sword from his inventory and casts about, alone in the darkness, looking for glowstone that might not be around for miles. The land is pitted, and disgusting, ripped apart by angry and greedy denizens of a cruel land with a jailed ruler, and he chases for resources in a way he desperately hopes isn’t futile. 

_ There.  _

High up above, two or three pieces at most, shoved deep into a quarry of netherrack. Sam twists about and raises his pickaxe, yanking a stack of stone from his inventory and starting to climb up, higher and higher, till the ground is a distant memory. He has no slow falling, no wings, no  _ safety, here,  _ but he slams his tools into the glowing, powdery rock the moment he can touch it. 

It crumbles apart as he attacks it. He lets it drop, a hole opening to allow it to shift automatically into his inventory. He collects nearly half a block before he calls himself satisfied, tucking his pickaxe back into his inventory and replacing it with enderpearls. A deep breath later, and it falls.

He teleports back to the ground with an angry  _ crunch.  _ It’s a lurch to his bones and he stumbles, forced to double over and clutch his chest at the jarring feeling that fills it. A piglin stares from across a scar in the ground. Its head is cocked, it’s crossbow lazy by its side. His mask is off, he realizes when no slightly-tinted film mars his vision. His golden helmet, he guesses, a moment too late, an arrow already fired, must be as well.

The flint barely grazes his shoulder, but he lets out a dry gasp regardless. It takes a moment to regain his breath in his crouched position, placing one foot forward just enough to stagger to his feet. Another arrow flies his way, an indignant, angry snort of a Piglin accompanying it, the beast staring at him with beady eyes. Sam ignores it and scrambles away, dodging the next arrows as he drops his skeleton-key into his lock, the nether portal a few feet away opening just as another arrow plants itself into the netherrack beside his head.

His breath comes in angry pants as he steps out of the portal, but he finds himself no less determined. There’s no time to stop to catch his breath, to clutch at his shoulder, to bandage his wounds, or cry out for help. Sam has never been one to fear blood of his own, and he proves it now, striding as confidently as he can up to the water before him and stabbing through it with his trident. He makes it to his base in what he thinks is record time, staggering through the entrance and grabbing his communicator in hands he suddenly realizes are bloody. 

_ Sam. _

_ Sam!  _

_ Sam! Sam, where are you! _

_ Sam! Come on! ! I need to see Tommy, where are you!  _

_ Sam! _

He sighs and types one-handedly, rushing to find an arrow with the other. He quickly presses what little magic he possesses into the glowstone and flint-tipped wood, wincing at the dull press at his reserves.

_ I needed glowstone. There’s nothing else, is there? _

_ Jeez jeez jeez Sam, is that all you need _

He forgoes a response, hoping his silence is enough of an answer. Instead, he pours more disinfectant over what he can -- himself included -- and hastily swaths gauze across his shoulder, hoping beyond what little hope he has left that with luck, he will not fail Tommy.

\---

Tubbo has absolutely zero idea what’s going on.

He’s standing in the middle of The Big Innit hotel. He watches, biting back insults, as Sam Nook paces robotically, wondering if the thing can even understand him. He reads from a book on  _ surgery,  _ a procedure for  _ heart attacks,  _ and wishes desperately that he could go back to putting penises on top of the prison and narrowly avoiding being brutally murdered by The Warden. He wishes, above all else, that  _ Tommy was here.  _

“Why won’t he respond?” He mutters, turning his page and typing in another few lines of instructions to Sam. There’s been radio silence from the man since a moment or two after he confirmed his materials, and Tubbo’s heart beats with anger, his hands shaking, trying to find their way to something other than this stupid fucking  _ book-  _ the one that is writing his friends death sentence, the one that feels plasticity and disgusting against his fingers, the one that makes him think of  _ Schlatt,  _ of who had once been his  _ father-  _

Tubbo shakes the thought from his head. Sam Nook paces. The sun outside grows dimmer. 

“He still hasn’t responded, Nook,” Tubbo says, softly, nearly unintelligible. Garbled speech comes from the mechanical man, and he looks down at his communicator, squinting in the evening light.

_ I HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO LEAVE FOR SAM’S HOUSE AT THE WARDEN’S NOTICE.  _

Tubbo throws his hands up in frustration. “That doesn’t help me!” He cries, looking back down at his book. His eyes sting, nose wrinkling as he lets out a sniff, trying desperately to stop from crying. He’s just  _ scared.  _ Tommy is his  _ best friend,  _ his  _ brother,  _ in all but blood. They’ve been through war after war, triumph after triumph, and Tubbo’s only just gotten him back. If Tommy dies before he can even make it up to him, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. 

_ I’M SORRY, TUBBO,  _ babbles Nook, giving a strange sort of half-bow in apology.  _ I WILL UPDATE YOU THE MOMENT I FIND OUT HOW TOMMY IS DOING. _

“That- that isn’t good enough.” Tubbo shoves his book away and types furiously into his communicator.  _ THAT. ISN’T. GOOD. ENOUGH.  _ Then, he discards it in turn, looking up to Sam Nook. He can barely even feel the tears that start down his cheeks, but he notices the movement of Nook’s mask, the indication of worry in his posture. 

_ “Please,”  _ he says, hoping it’s more of a demand than a sob. His voice breaks as fear wells up inside of him, hoping desperately that for once in his god damned life, an adult will  _ listen to him. “Please.  _ Tommy- Tommy won’t want to be alone. I- I want to see him.”

But Tubbo has spent his entire life being disappointed.

Abandoned by a father who couldn’t help but forget him. Found and loved and  _ kept,  _ by a man who had no true children of his own, who gave Tubbo a  _ family,  _ only to be cast away again, left behind with a country to run and a brother, gone. Left with the last father he’d ever been able to have. The last he’d ever  _ loved. _

(For Schlatt had  _ tried.  _ He had been sick, and he had been tired, but against all, he truly had loved Tubbo, once.  _ Once.) _

But here he sits, chest twitching in an effort to hold back a sob. He stares into an empty mask with his hands at his sides, losing a war he doesn’t have the energy to start. 

Until Sam Nook deflates and nods his head.

For a moment it doesn’t register. Tubbo hangs his head, his shivering hands coming up to rub at his eyes. God- he’s  _ terrified.  _ He only wants his friend, for reasons beyond the fact that Tommy is his only one left. He wants Philza, and he wants Schlatt, and he wants L’Manberg, and he wants, and he wants, and all he has  _ ever done  _ has been  _ want,  _ never  _ ask,  _ never dare to  _ hope- _

His head snaps back up. Wait-

And there it is again. Sam Nook nods and burbles, and Tubbo looks down at his communicator with wide eyes and a frantic look, daring to actually see. 

_ I’LL DO WHAT I CAN,  _ it reads. Sam Nook has barely finished his sentence by the time his words send, shrill speech clipping off as sudden as it began. Tubbo’s hands waver as he looks at the screen, and as something wet hits the glass.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, there is Tubbo angst in here now! Half of this fic is writing itself like I have no agency anymore this is way longer than I expected it to get


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoohooo hoooooo... haha................
> 
> (Quick note. I have a Tumblr! You can find this fic crossposted on Wattpad on there. I'm soupsword at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/soupsword )

He slinks through orange with the pace of a wall. He’s slow and exhausted, his limbs stuck in awkward positions as his body trudges through the heat. Something clutches his ribs, hands holding his exposed bones like barred-windows, managing to pull him back from inside. But he plants his feet and he limps on regardless, hands twitching with the effort. 

There’s a thundershock of energy. A full-bodied jerk, the hands on his ribs pulling further, out, away from his chest, sinew and muscle and bone coming with it in an unimaginable feeling-

Tommy’s chest expands with a noise like a wheeze. He lets out a bone-rattling gasp, lips feeling sewn together with the crust of a few days disuse. His awakening is not fast, nor slow, but paced, as he regains a heavy feeling in his chest and a pounding one in his forehead. There’s a distant ringing somewhere in his general vicinity, and if he weren’t currently trying to figure out why his organs feel like cooked gruel, he would say something rude to it. But as it is, he can barely move, and after that first gasp, it’s like he can’t move his mouth again.

_ “T- mm-“ _

Someone is talking. They’re frantic. Then they’re calm. No — that isn’t quite right. It’s two people, one saying his name with a firm, calm tempter to it, the other worried and loud. He ignores them both in favor of trying to get his breathing back under control. It’s not working very well. Something doesn’t… feel  _ right.  _ He can’t tell if it’s his breathing or his heart or his soul or his  _ life,  _ but its pace is off, and he draws in another gurgling cough. Suddenly, he realizes he hasn’t even tried to open his eyes. 

When he does, the world is an amalgam of blurred shapes and colors. Yellow, and brown, and metallic gold and silver. Green flickers, like a searchlight, at the end of his tunneled vision. His breath, the grip on his ribs, quickens, tightens, as some unexplainable feeling bubbles up.

_ “N- water-” _

Someone is speaking. Not to him, but to the green in the back of the room, something about water, and Tommy is grateful. His skin  _ burns. _

_ “C- n you -r -me?” _

Tommy opens his mouth to speak. A cough falls out instead. He tries again. 

“Wh- what th- the  _ fuck?” _

_ “T-mmy!” _ The nearest figure lurches towards him. If he could flinch, he probably would’ve flown off whatever surface he’s on. The person beside him must realize that because they settle, a hand coming down to rest on… bedsheets? “-r you o-?”

“Is -even pr- ply awake?” Asks the other blob with an inquisitive tone. The green shifts closer and his chest tightens, his hands at his side twitching to life in their itch to escape. 

Things start to focus right as something brushes up against his chin. He makes to shove at it -- realizes how absolutely on-fire his insides feel -- and then decides to lean in, allowing someone to help him drink. A light orange sweater floats into view. It’s followed by a carefully strung necklace, a compass hanging from it and clutched in a child’s hand, crossed over with burn scars. His gaze drifts upward, to a neck stained the same shade of tight, firework-red, light brown hair curled backward and horns, just starting to grow. Tubbo looks down at him with a worried expression, still holding the cup.

“Tommy?” Asks his friend, blinking. He looks to the back of the room. The green, unidentifiable and gut-wrenching, is Sam, leaning against a wall with an exhausted gaze over the edge of his half-on mask.

“Y- yeah,” says Tommy breathlessly. Sam is usually no danger to him, but he can’t quite regulate his heartbeat. It pounds fast and quick, jackrabbiting up against his chest. “Wh-”

It starts to flood back. It isn’t quite just one moment’s rush of information, but he remembers the prison and the TnT, and his eyes widen, staring at Sam’s mask, the one thing in this unidentifiable, clinical room he can focus on. Sam doesn’t react when Tommy starts trying to sit up, but Tubbo puts his hand on his shoulder, frowning.

“Dude. You- you’re hurt. You shouldn’t be getting up.”

“W- well no shit,” growls Tommy. He remembers something green, something orange, something yellow, heat against his back, Dream’s hands on his shoulder. Before he can stop himself, he wheezes, remembering a locked-down prison, screaming, a man standing before him and laughing, cold and quiet. He remembers a terrible pain in his chest, a smell, so  _ odd- _

Oh. That’s Sam, in front of him now. The man is talking to Tommy, leaning over the bed with a furrowed brow. His words fade in and out, and Tommy tries his best, straining to hear.

“Come -n, -mmy,  _ breathe-  _ c-py Tubbo, y- need t- -eathe-”

He gets the gist, but it’s  _ hard,  _ his heart feeling like he’s just run a mile, his body shivering, hot and cold, and terribly afraid in a way he doesn’t want to confront. A hand comes up to his chest and someone counts, miles away, applying gentle pressure to clothes that he suddenly realizes are not his own.

“M- ‘M fine,” he mumbles, as his lungs manage to expand. “J- just fine. What…  _ happened?” _

Sam, now having migrated to stand next to Tubbo, lets out a deep sigh, bringing up a hand to pinch at his brow. He’s dressed in the most casual clothes Tommy’s ever seen him in -- a white tank top, one shoulder dressed in bandages, stained in oil. A pair of black sweatpants. In the open patches of skin he can see, Tommy notices some green creeper-scales. The shade almost makes him shiver, but when he looks close enough, they’re iridescent. A mossy green, rather than Dream’s mind-numbing neon.

“When… the prison locked down,” starts Sam, with a voice Tommy can’t quite describe. “You were locked inside.”

“Wh- I already  _ know that-” _

“-And you…” Sam pauses in the middle of his continuation. His eyes dart away, his carefully set mask of emotionless cracking. “You had a heart attack.”

And, well. That isn’t at all what he’d expected. Tommy frowns in disbelief before it hits him that Sam is  _ deadly serious.  _ He gapes, looking from Tubbo to Sam to the wall, eyes wide. A  _ heart attack.  _ He’d known what he smelt, known what he’d seen, heard, felt in his body, but never in a million years did he think he’d end up almost dying to a  _ heart attack.  _ He’d always expected it to be a bit less… presidential.

“I think people with hybrid genes, dormant or not, are at higher risk. Schlatt did have his  _ extremely  _ young, and half-creepers are at exceptionally high risk for heart diseases.”

“And you never met your parents,” adds Tubbo helpfully. “But Philza did always say you weren’t quite human.”

“I think he was just being  _ mean,”  _ says Tubbo, still trying to process the info.

Tubbo smiles at him cheerily. “He could’ve been right, though! I wanna ask him, but I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. It has been three days, you know?”

“Since I got locked into the prison?”

“No,” says Sam quietly. “You were there for five days.”

“Oh- well,” he starters, letting of a thready chuckle, “I know I’m not a bloody  _ cardiologist  _ or whatever, but I know people can’t survive after heart attacks for  _ five days,  _ Sam!”

The way that both Tubbo and Sam go completely quiet does not bode well. He stares at them expectantly, planting a hand into the mattress beneath him and sliding up against his meager pile of pillows. No one stops him this time, and he maneuvers his aching bones into a half-sitting position. Someone’s changed his shirt, he notes, as he looks down to find himself in a lightweight red sweater. 

“You didn’t,” says Sam, finally, snapping Tommy out of his curiosity. He looks up to a dead-stare, breath catching in his chest when he sees how serious the other man has gone. “You died in there, Tommy. Dream had only enough power left to keep you alive. When I found you, he said I could let him go, and then he could save you for me.” Sam pauses in his story. Tommy can’t tell if it’s out of exhaustion or a need to collect his thoughts, as he tugs at a bandage across his shoulder. “I… I took you out myself. And you died. The Warden only barely managed to bring you back.”

He lets it sink in in silence. Tommy had known, when he entered that cell, he might be faced with a hard discussion. Damnit -- he’d been  _ expecting it,  _ expecting to let go of his remaining fear and anger directed toward Pandora’s Vault’s only inhabitant. He’d trusted that this would have been his last time, and things would have been  _ fixed. _

Then the explosions had happened. Dream had begun to smile. Tommy had realized, as he’d started to shout for Sam, that he would not be leaving. 

“You mean to say,” he murmurs, voice small. Tommy swallows. “Dream’s the only reason I’m not dead.”

Tommy remembers the nether. He remembers the way, so many times, he’d lagged behind Dream, staring down, down,  _ down,  _ into swirling gold. How many times Dream had stopped him only moments before a decision could be made. A smile, and a hand on his back. Another day lived. Another hole filled and another path broken.

“W- well Sam did an awful lot!” Even Tubbo seems to be aware of his own false cheer. “He got you out of there and even did a whole surgery. Took an arrow in the shoulder, too, that’s pretty fuckin’ cool.”

Tommy looks up at Sam, his eyes falling on the man’s bandaged shoulder. He shrugs, dropping the hand previously holding that arm, and holds the bed’s frame instead. “I had to get glowstone for a spectral arrow. There… wasn’t enough time to make anything safer.”

Then: in one, sudden blink, each ounce of tiredness Tommy’s been holding back slams into him at once, and he slumps backward, eyes hitting the corner of the room. His heart still strains out of his chest, his mouth and lips dried, his eyes crusted over with days of sleep.

“I’m. I’m, uhm- tired. G’nna go to bed.”

Tubbo nods in an instant, face encouraging. His hand -- tightly clutching his compass -- tells another tale. “Yeah- yeah, of course. You rest, we’ll see you in the morning.”

It takes only one blink more for him to sleep.

\---

When Sam leaves Tubbo and Nook alone with Tommy, he takes his sword in hand. 

He wears his deep green shirt under layers of gold and netherite paneling, his shoulder aching in protest with every swing. His wound has gotten infected -- not badly, but enough that he doesn’t chance un-bandaging it just yet. He draws his trident and makes his way towards one very particular portal in the nether. He doesn’t chance it this time, either -- his golden armor stays  _ firmly  _ on, and he nods at the few piglins that pass him agreeably.

He’s never actually been to Technoblade’s base. He doesn’t trust the hybrid as far as he can throw him, and it’s the same with Ranboo and Philza. They are… destructive, and cold, often, even toward their own. It certainly doesn’t help that Sam once… stole Technoblade’s horse and forced him to complete an elaborate puzzle to get it back. But this was before  _ so  _ much war, a prank, really, and so he hopes it hasn’t turned them to enemies. And, in the end, Philza himself is one of the only other ancient entities on the server other than Dream, and it makes Sam cautious. His feet hit snow as he exits the portal, and he walks toward their impromptu “anarchist headquarters” with a determined gait.

When he finally reaches the home early evening has begun to dawn. The first rays of starlight twinkle down, and he is immediately reminded that he is far, far away from the prison, from any city and the light pollution they bring. He sheathes his sword and raps a tight fist against the door before his nerves can get the better of him. This is Tommy’s  _ family,  _ and if anything, they deserve to know what Sam intends to do.

The heavy wooden thing swings open to reveal the end of a crossbow, an arrow shining as it jerks to meet the space between Sam’s eyes. He doesn’t even flinch, nodding his head coolly as Technoblade reveals himself.

“Name?”

The pig is dressed in traditional garb. His white shirt is stained in blood, his light blue cape swapped for a red one. So much for retirement and pacifism, thinks Sam, remembering the night the remainder of L’Manberg had been decimated. 

“Sam,” he says in a bored drawl. Techno peers down the barrel of his crossbow -- stained cherry red with more than paint -- before he nods, lowering it. It goes tucked into his inventory, replaced with a warning -- a hand draped nonchalantly over the sheathed blade at his waist, fingers threatening to cut.

“And what’s your business here, Sam? I heard you’ve been off babysitting as o’ recent.”

“I need to see Philza,” he says, not taking the bait. Techno, backlit by the indoor lighting, narrows his eyes, fingers very obviously starting to curl about the hilt of his blade. Sam does the same, subtly tracing his gauntlets over the edges of his own netherite. “I have a question. And news, depending on when you’ve last been into the SMP.”

“Hm.”

Golden light spills out from inside. A cold wind blows from out, ruffling through the fabric of Sam’s cloak, draped across his shoulders and hiding his hair in the hood. Something, deep in the forest, lets out a low, painful moan. Techno opens the door and nods.

“He’s here. But any funny business-” he plants an arm into the doorway and block the entrance “-An’ I mean  _ any funny business,  _ and all take as many of your lives as I need. Get it, Sam? I’m the one covered in blood.”

Sam nods, deciding it best not to contest that claim and bring up the fact that his shoulder is still bloody and his fingernails are encrusted with Tommy’s and his own both. He enters the home to a room filled with chests, an enderman sitting in a boat and letting out shrill little noises when Techno greets it. He’s taken through a hallway and down a brief set of stairs to a small, living room sort area. An old couch sits in the corner, a few chairs sat haphazardly about. Sam realizes, as he looks about, that most things in this house have a theme. Bloodstains. 

“Sam?”

He looks up from his noticings to see Philza, sitting down in front of a fireplace with his wings stretched out far behind him. His eyes are dark and cold, but Sam can see the barest bits of compassion in them. He can see why so many people might’ve loved him once, just like Tommy.

“Hello,” he says, a tad awkward. “I need to talk to you about your son.”

Philza smiles good-naturedly and lets out a chuckle. Techno, sensing no danger, sits in an armchair previously occupied with a book and starts to read, bloodshot eyes fixed to the weathered pages, attention split both between the room and the words. “Of which I have a few, Sam. You’re gonna need to be more specific.”

“Tommy.”

The atmospheric change in the room is immediate. It’s a bit funny, really just how differently they act when their youngest comes into the discussion. Techno shifts, not an angry movement, closer to Sam, his hand poised to reach into his inventory, to his sword. Philza stares for a moment or two, calculating eyes piercing the glass of Sam’s mask. Clearly, he thinks, with a flare of protective anger, their youngest family member is not a popular one.

But neither Philza nor Techno downright tell him to leave, so he continues.

“You both know of the prison and Dream’s residence, correct?” They nod wordlessly. “And his involvement in Tommy’s trauma?” 

They pause. It’s telling, Sam thinks, the way that Philza averts his eyes, and Technoblade’s sharp face focuses on his mask rather than the book. For a moment, it’s like they have no clue what he’s talking about. Then with a deep sigh only able to be conjured up by a father, Philza nods, dragging his gaze back to the fireplace before him.

“He refused to give us the full story with it. With Techno I can understand, they were never all that close, but me…?” A weary look. “I’m his father, but he didn’t quite trust me enough. So I’m not  _ really  _ sure of everything that happened. But I am aware that Dream had a hand in Tommy’s exile, so I suppose you could call it trauma.”

Another hot wave of anger hits Sam.  _ Could,  _ call it? Tommy’s fear, his anxiety, the way he can’t enter the nether or see the color green without a double-take, was only  _ possible  _ trauma? 

He doesn’t voice any of this. Instead, he nods, trying his best to continue his story without a darker tone to his voice. (He tries as well to keep his guilt from surfacing, from overtaking his words, but he thinks he might fail.)

“The Warden and I agreed to let Tommy into the prison a little over a week ago. He told me he wanted to make it his last visit. For closure. He said he’s… not been happy. He wanted to end things, not leave Dream as a loose end.”

“About ten minutes into his visit, something went wrong.” His fingers twitch on the hilt of his sword as he remembers the sounds. Explosions like gunfire and bombs, a war occurring just outside his prison. Screaming, terrified,  _ awful,  _ trapped inside the cell. “Someone tried to explode their way into the prison. Protocol states that if there is a breach of security while someone is inside a cell, prisoner or not, they will not be permitted to leave until the breach has been taken care of. No one in or out for seven days tops.”

Techno and Philza nod, the younger humming. “Smart policy. Let me guess: Tommy started hollering the moment it started.”

“Tommy was  _ terrified,”  _ Sam snaps, voice going cold as he loses the careful emotionlessness of his words. Techno’s eyes narrow -- in anger, confusion, Sam doesn’t  _ care.  _ “He shouted for me to get him about for about ten minutes. He switched to  _ you  _ after that,” he continues, pointing angrily at Philza, not even stopping to analyze the accusatory tone to his voice. “Started begging for either of us to come to help him. I had to leave after that, but I have  _ no idea  _ how much longer he kept going.

Looking increasingly more disturbed, Philza runs a hand through his hair, eyes meeting with Techno’s as they go through some hidden understanding.

“I couldn’t let him out, obviously. I didn’t want to. The Warden would’ve killed me regardless, and I don’t have any intention of losing any of my lives. So- so I  _ fixed things,”  _ he says, realizing he’s trying to justify it all to himself just as much as he is his audience. It makes his gut twist as he remembers just how long he waited. “It’d been five whole days by the time I finally got back there.”

“And what?” Demands Philza, steely. He stands, knees popping as he stands to face Sam. “Dream can’t kill anyone. What happened, Sam?”

“Don’t act so  _ mighty,”  _ Sam sneers, leaning closer. For the first time in a long time, his anger overflows, and he throws his gauntleted hands up in frustration. “As if you came to protect him just as much  _ I didn’t.  _ When I got back into that cell, it turns out Tommy had a heart attack less than an hour into his time with Dream.  _ A heart attack.”  _

This pauses the men of the room, as Philza lets out a quiet gasp, and Techno goes still. 

“He was dead the moment I took him out. The Warden and I are the  _ only goddamn reasons he’s still alive.” _

All is silent.

Techno’s book has been discarded entirely. It sits, closed, on the floor, his feet beside it making to rise. Philza looks as stricken with grief as Sam feels, his eyes heavy and filled with regret that does  _ nothing.  _ His wings sag under his knowledge, but Sam does not feel an ounce of guilt.

“That’s all I needed to say,” Sam ends, his head held up and his chin dipping low into a curt nod. "That, and  I’m taking over custody of your son.”

He walks out. Neither Technoblade nor Philza follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me clear something up really quickly: Philza and Techno love Tommy. Techno is a sour young adult, and Philza is a man who never REALLY officially became a father, and they're not perfect by a long shot. Sam doesn't come to their house to attack or berate them for anything. He also didn't come to negotiate. He isn't going to adopt Tommy or anything (yet) but he also wants to make sure the boy has a stable home. So, for right now, he's intervening. Neither Phil nor Techno are enemies/villains/antagonists in this story, just complicated and a bit quick-tempered. They'll probably pop back up more depending on whether this story gets much more plot.
> 
> Anyways! As always I hope you all enjoyed it! Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely lovely readers!
> 
> This chapter is... not very well edited. I managed to speed run my way into a mental health crises about two days ago and I have yet to get my mind straight. I’m currently posting this at 12 am, simply because I really wanted to get it out! I feel really bad for leaving this fic, even if it was only for a day or two. Hopefully this is all ok! 
> 
> (But seriously: if you see any glaring mistakes, inconsistencies, or out of character moments, I love to hear input.)

Tommy dreams of forests.

He dreams of a voice laughing, hidden in the trees, encouraging, accompanied by a strum of a guitar. Tommy sees leaves fall and wood grow, sees roots come up from the ground and a city erect itself around him. The laughing continues, a song growing. Then the strings of the instrument snap. The laugh grows cold. Trees fall. Green turns brightened and dirt grows hot. 

Tommy wakes up with a startled gasp.

Once, he’d been vocal about his nightmares. They were more like night terrors, truly, echoes and memories of brothers and walls and burning and explosions. He would wake up and find Dream, standing over him, asking what was wrong. After that, he’d found how to stay quiet.

It takes a moment for him to catch his breath. His heart pounds viciously within him, and he catches himself bringing a hand up to clutch at the spot in front of it. 

He looks around. He’s still in the same room as he’d been in before, dressed in the same clothes with the lights dimmed to barely a glow. When he strains, he can hear someone outside. He takes a moment to collect his sluggish thoughts and breath, chest rising up and down in a staccato rhythm. Then, the sound outside rises. At this he struggles his way into a sitting position, ignoring the heavy slick of sweat on his forehead. When he reaches up a hand to push his hair back, it’s soaked.

“Eugh. Gross,” he whispers, shaking his hand back off when it comes away wet. With a great amount of effort he groans, shuffling his legs to the side of the bed and off. The ground beneath his feet —a smooth, cool, tile —is an odd contrast from the soft bedding beneath him. They’ve taken his  _ socks. _

It takes a moment or two for him to muster up the energy to move. Staggering towards the wall, he flicks the light back up, wincing as it all turns to high at once. The iron door beside him clicks unlocked with a press of a button, and he shoulders through it, stepping into the larger room.

He’s in Sam’s base. The angry yellow of fluorescent lights glares down the moment he steps from the room, casting wide shadows where chests and utensils lie. Casting a look down the widest part of the bunker exposes random junk and nothing more — blocks, bones and skulls, discarded around in semi-neat piles. Tommy knows, logically, it’s Sapnap’s. He sneers at the thought, almost laughing at the expression he think Sam will take when he sees it all. Then, looking up to the front of the bunker, he sees the culprit himself, Sapnap jumping on top of chests and tables, parkouring while listening to music out of a jukebox.

“Hey-“ Tommy coughs, ruining the effect of his shout “-Hey dickhead!” Sapnap goes falling off of a bench and shrieks as he plants side-first onto the floor. “Ha!”

“You- Jesus, Tommy.” Sapnap clutches his side and clenches his teeth, rolling upwards into a sitting position with a venomous look. “Dude, why are you even  _ awake?” _

“Ah, so Mr. Samuel is- is giving out all my  _ business  _ now?”

Sapnap snorts. “Dude, I have no idea what happened. The Warden just told me that there was a casualty incoming and I should clear off.”

“Oh- oh a  _ casualty,”  _ grumbles Tommy. He hobbles forward and leans up against a chest, bones aching to stretch. His neck snaps when he leans back to yawn, a sharp, exaggerated groan falling forth. “I’m not  _ dead.” _

“Maybe you are,” Sapnap says with a shrug.

“Maybe  _ you  _ are,” Tommy shoots back, along with a glare. “Where’s Tubbo? Sam? Don’t tell me I’m stuck all alone with  _ Sapnap.”  _

The man in question scowls. He’s only just managed to get to his feet, eyes narrowed as he clutches at his apparently-still-painful side. “Tubbo went to the bathroom,  _ Timothy.  _ Sam’s at the prison. Apparently Bad and Ant tried to grow a ton of vines in there.”

He wracks his brain, trying to remember if he’d seen anything of the sort in the thirty minutes before his heart allegedly quit on him. There’d been nothing out of the ordinary other than the war zone noises outside, but Tommy subconsciously chalks it up to having been experiencing a heart attack. Huh — it is a bit more impressive when you think about the fact that you survived. Still, he shivers at the reminder of Dream. But before he can muse any longer:

_ “Tommy!” _

Tubbo goes careening out of the restroom, clutching his compass in one hand and drying the other on his shirt. Tommy snorts at his friend’s disarray. “Big man! How do you feel?”

“I feel great,” Tommy says, a clear lie. “All the women will be flocking to me by the time I’m allowed out of here! Which should be now. I’m making it now.” He starts off toward the base’s exit, only stopped by Tubbo’s hand, draped across his shoulder.

(He still flinches. He  _ still flinches,  _ even at as light a touch, even from his brother.) 

“Man, you just had a  _ heart attack.  _ What are you even gonna do right now?”

Tommy looks at his friend with an expression of disbelief. “Check on Big Innit hotel,  _ obviously!  _

“Tommy, can’t you just like- make drugs here and wait, or something?” Asks Sapnap. Then: “Drugs. Nice.” Apparently recovered from his tumble, he climbs up on top of the nearest chest, ignoring the shaking of his support. Proceeding to jump to the next chest, he lets out a  _ “hup!”  _ And a grin as he lands safely. “Lots of drugs. Yknow, Tommy, maybe that’s why you had a heart attack. Drugs.”

“Bah.” He waves a hand flippantly, curling his lip into a sneer of mocking disbelief. “Drugs don’t hurt people. They make you  _ big,  _ and  _ strong,  _ and energetic.”

“Well. J-Schlatt did do a lot of drugs,” Tubbo says, rubbing his arm. “Did you know he had a hole in his septum? His nose was- like, always bleeding. All over his documents and stuff. I had to wash his jacket once and that thing was  _ magnetic.” _

“Er. This is  _ my _ tragic backstory moment, Tubbo. Jschlatt died because he was an evil and stupid politician. No offense. You were a… decent President.”

“None taken!” Tubbo replies brightly. Then, as Tommy makes to pull away: “But seriously, man. You should stay here. I don’t think you should be so eager to go everywhere.”

Tommy levels his friends with a half glare. However… His heart patters quickly, his bones exhausted, his eyes low. But he is not a quitter. He wants to go out and show Dream and the rest of his world that Tommy has not failed, has not gone away, not with something so simple as the smallest of relapses. But Tubbo’s gaze holds strong, subtly concerned, a smile just as subtly false in place.

“Well, if you’re so worried,” Tommy says slowly, “Why don’t you just come with me? I’m not just gonna stay home because I’m a little  _ tired,  _ Tubbo.”

(But inside, he knows it’s deeper. He aches. Something deep inside of him has changed, twisting to the left and jerking up and out, like a loose tooth that Wilbur had helped him to pull out when he was younger. It feels like something has finally broken, and it will not be able to come back. But regardless, there are things to be done, and for all of his exhaustion, he finds that rather than tired, he is  _ manic.) _

_ (And when did he start calling this place a home?) _

But either way and to Tommy’s relief, Tubbo nods, giving Sapnap a small shrug, as if to say  _ “do I really have a choice?”  _ Tommy smiles, like everything is going to be ok. 

The world bends around and for him, and Tommy hopes to feel some semblance of control.

—-

Tommy enters the Big Innit hotel with Tubbo hovering at his side. The boy flutters about in a way that suggests he doesn’t know he’s doing it, the two of them both trading banter and walking along. They walk slowly — Tommy isn’t a  _ complete  _ idiot — and hide when others see them, making sure not to get too close to any bases or hideouts. 

(He sees things out of the corner of his eyes. Green, and angry, and laughing. His heart quickens and his hands shake. Someone watches and waits and plans and attacks, but when Tommy looks up, they’re never there.) 

“So, where’s bitchboy?” Asks Tommy, splaying his hands across the front desk. Nook is nowhere to be seen, but he looks around regardless, making a play of sneering at the idea that Jack could be anywhere around. 

“Eh- he kinda sorta started messing with the hotel, and so Nook fired him. For you.” Tubbo smiles sheepishly. “He… tried to behead him? Just a bit?”

Tommy let’s put a whooping sort of laugh, suppressing a cough at the sharp pain it pulls out of his chest. He has a sneaking suspicion that Tubbo forgot to tell him about having broken ribs, especially if The Warden had to do CPR. But he works through it either way, snaking his arm up to clutch his side. He’s had broken ribs before. Maybe, before exile, he wouldn’t have cared to keep them safe. Now, as he thinks about all the strikes he’d taken to the chest to Logstedshire, all the angry battering hits from Dream, he lets out a deep, slow breath. 

“He did, huh? Finally got rid of that dickhead! Fine enough with me,” he announces, twirling away from the desk with a grin and a dramatic look. It feels normal, almost, the world quietly collapsing back into a regulated state. For a moment he half expects to see Wilbur at the door. He finds himself facing the doorway, surprised enough when another face really does look back.

“Tommy?” Says Puffy, in a voice so cautiously soft it  _ hurts.  _

And suddenly:

(Tommy knows better than to let it show. He knows better than to let his relief show, a familiar face, a familiar voice, an ally. He knows to keep it trapped, his relief, his care, his emotions. There’s a certain level pushed out by Tubbo, forced out in the way only his brother can achieve. Around anyone else Tommy is fire, angry, and raw, and curses far more than words. He has been taught by the years that to trust is to die, and to die is to kill before someone else can land a hit.)

But Puffy rushes forward and throws her arms around him in a hug, and he crumples.

He feels his chin hit her shoulder, a shudder of a gasp falling out of him as he realizes just how much this hug  _ hurts.  _ Hurts as a release, hurts knowing that she  _ cares.  _ That Tubbo does, as the boy places a gentle hand on Tommy’s shoulder where he collapses into the hug. 

“I fixed your sign,” she says, a smile in her words. He lets out a wet cough of a laugh and pulls away, nodding thankfully.

“I’ve never looked so fucking good, bitch,” he says, with a voice mocking tearfulness. She laughs, and Tubbo lets out a half giggle behind them, and things continue to climb upward in spirit. 

“So, you had a heart attack, then?” Puffy pulls away completely, her hands landing on her hips and a stern glare falling into place. Then, she shakes her head, ignoring the odd look Tommy throws Tubbo’s way. “I didn’t know both you and Tubbo got Schlatt’s genes.”

“I’m not his kid!” Tubbo blurts. He shakes his head vigorously. “And Tommy is an orphan!”

“Technoblade hates me,” deadpans Tommy. In reality — Techno is just as much an orphan as he, and very much aware of it. “But really? What is it with you dickheads making  _ Schlatt jokes?  _ I’m Big Man Innit! Big T! I shouldn’t have fucking  _ heart problems!  _ I’m sixteen!”

“Ooooo- Oldinnit.”

He gapes at his Captain, an embarrassing squeak falling out of his open mouth. Tubbo falls into peals of laughter and Tommy follows, gripping his side against the sharp pain within his ribs. Though he can’t see it, Puffy frowns. It’s absent by the time the boy looks up. 

“So, what’ve I missed?”

Puffy looks at him with a half cocked head, horns titling along with her hat and mane of white hair. Tubbo seems less inclined to answer, quite by Tommy’s side. “Not a lot,” she answers finally. “Manifold tried to take over the hotel. I switched the sign around, but I believe Nook was the one who removed him from the property.” She snorts. “Now he’s just running around and being a vindictive little bastard. Spreading lies about you. He  _ really  _ wants this hotel, Tommy.”

“Me and Ranboo started a hotel! Kind of!” Tubbo says to the side. “We… didn’t know you were trapped yet, Toms, I swear. It even has a funny name!”

Tommy eyes the boy and his passively raised hands with an upturned squint. “Oh  _ yeah?  _ Oh  _ yeah, bitch?  _ What was it named?”

There’s a moment’s pause, where Tubbo leans backwards, smiling nervously. “Bee & Boo…?”

Tommy blinks. “Oh. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

From the side, Puffy watches as the two laugh. It’s touching to see Tommy bounce back so quickly, even though the bags beneath his eyes are deeper than ever, his gait a limp, stumbling and slow. His breathing comes in short pants after he laughs, his arms clutched to ribs not yet healed.

She has a healing potion in her inventory for a reason, as Tommy beckons the two of them to the hotel’s lobby seating, not so subtly taking the weight off of his badly trembling legs. She’s surprised Sam let him leave his base at all. 

(Sam, who is not at his base, and is none the wiser.)

But through it all, something prods at her. She remember’s Jack’s lies, and the way that he’d been so  _ adamant  _ that Tommy had attempted to release Dream. _.  _ He’s a terrible liar, but had it not been for her own intimate knowledge of the situation, she might’ve thought he had some truth to his words. So she joins the two boys in their animated conversation, waiting until it lulls.

“Tommy, the situation with Jack is deeper than I think either of you realize,” she says gently, when the two look up at her. His face, ashen already, gains an even more tired look. She slips a stack of steak from her inventory and hands each boy a piece of jerky, ignoring the ravenous look on Tommy’s face. 

“Oh yeah?” He says, voice soft. “What’s that bitch done now?”

She hesitates.

This is not their burden. This is her and Sam’s to deal with, to take care of, to stop from spreading. Tommy and Tubbo are children broken by years of trauma, or wars and abandonment. And now, just as one gets out from being  _ destroyed  _ by their abuser, someone insinuates that Tommy had been the one to let his abuser  _ out? _

Well, needless to say, Captain Puffy, of sea and of shore and of flowers, will not stand for it. 

“He’s trying to mess with  _ my  _ builds, too.”

And, if the boy’s grins don’t split her heart in half, she doesn’t know what does.

—-

Sam dreams of vines.

He dreams of red, smooth and scaled like his own skin, but alive in a way it  _ shouldn’t  _ be. He dreams of someone in the distance, an open mouth and a sound he can’t hear, blond hair red and shirt torn with the force of a blade. Sam dreams of an empty, vast nothingness, broken only by  _ blood.  _ By vines, crawling into his chest and sloshing about in his insides like drink, possessing what little he owns and forcing his hands to curl around the handle of a blade, to press into a chest, to break a heart, to break, to break, to  _ kill- _

Sam wakes without a noise.

His eyes slide open to be met by darkness. He is not disoriented, nor frightened, as he casts about, goggle-clad eyes quickly familiarizing him with his surroundings. His base is quiet in the nighttime it settles in, not a single person out of a room save for him. He sits slumped against a wall, a trident in hand. He isn’t sure when he left his room or found his way here, curled into a secluded corner, but the trident in his grasp is as familiar as anything. 

Sam stands, leveraging himself up on the great netherite handle in his hand. Wind whistles through his base. Empty walls stand far too vacant. A door, with a whistle and a beep, opens.

There stands Tommy, hands covering his face as he slides down to lean against the wall.

Well — Sam is  _ not  _ one with his words, not by a long shot. But he knows intimately how it feels to wake up with a war in your mind, as he thinks of the early days of his life in this world. He slides his trident into his inventory and walks with heavy strides, making his presence obvious as he walks carefully towards the boy. Tommy flinches regardless, his shoulders hunched, curling closer to his chest, guarded.  _ Just another place he can never trust,  _ Sam thinks, mind flashing with images of surgery and failure. He blinks it away and comes to a pause before the younger boy, crouching down on his heels and balancing his wrists on his knees.

“Go ‘way, Sam,” Tommy says in a warbling voice. His breath hitches. His hair, wet with sweat, barely moves in the air that filters through the base. Sam does not move.

“Do you need to talk about it?” He whispers, for he knows it’s rarely a matter of  _ want.  _ Tommy loves to lament his life, spinning a tragedy. 

He did not inherit Wilbur’s love for song, but the stories he can spin could make ballads just as well. But Tommy is private, cold, angry, even, when truly meant to confront his past. He gives sparse details and clipped words, then steals your things. So Sam waits and watches. He gives a choice.

Tommy shakes his head. Sam takes it in stride, but does not leave. Instead, he settles down into a seated position, legs sliding to rest beside Tommy. He folds his hands in his lap and unclasps his mask, sliding it off. His fingers itch to replace it with his hands, but he refuses. Tommy deserves more than a half-creeper’s welding mask, a disguise, to listen to. Sam is sure the boy has probably had enough of masks, and so he sits there, vulnerable, afraid, but sure.

“Sometimes I dream about the egg,” he starts. “It’s scary enough without having been trapped under it so long it started wiggling around in my brain.” He taps the side of his head, though he’s sure Tommy can’t see it. The boy still shakes, fingers curled around his face so deep Sam thinks it might draw blood. “I will leave if you really want, kiddo. But I will  _ never _ let Dream hurt you again. If that means I can help with getting him out of your nightmares too, I’ll try. I can’t do that if you don’t  _ talk to me.” _

He sighs, heavy and tired. “I know better than many how dangerous it is to keep things bottled up. To explode. I don’t want to watch it happen to you.”

With that he stands. Sam leaves Tommy to shiver in the drafty entrance of the base. He walks off and plucks his trident from his inventory, a prickling twitch between his eyes telling him to replace his mask now that he is away from the thing that makes him vulnerable. Makes him  _ care.  _ He ignores it, going to sit at the front of his base, propped up against a chest and sharpening his weapon with a rock, the frottage making sparks.

A moment later a form drifts before him. Thin hands shake as they settle on the chest, Tommy pulling himself up to sit a few inches from Sam. Then, in one swift move: blond curls land on golden armor, his head coming to rest on Sam’s shoulder. They sit in silence, and things feel right. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... is it too obvious I know barely anything about Puffy? She apparently once said her Dream SMP character is basically just Toriel, so hopefully this isn’t an awful characterization of her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Two really important notes about this chapter!
> 
> The first part of this is from Techno's perspective. That means, in the beginning, all sorts of fancy blood god talk. He also briefly mentions self harm and EXTREMELY destructive coping mechanisms. If you don't want to see that, skip the second and fourth paragraphs. Second thing: Someone says something suggesting Tommy is going to be formally adopted by Sam, and he reacts strongly. Almost angry. This is just a knee jerk reaction, he would accept being adopted. Sam is dad. Dadpog. Soninnit.

Technoblade does not make apologies.

Technoblade, when he regrets, bleeds. He takes blades and flenses skin, others and his own without discrimination. He listens to the voices and does as he’s told, succumbing to a wave of control so strong he has no room left to be sorry. 

(He remembers the opposite, once. Sitting at a grave and whispering, with a hand shivering in the cold, wondering what might have happened had he paid only a bit more  _ attention-) _

When Technoblade feels  _ bad,  _ he kills. When he feels  _ guilty,  _ he kills. When he  _ feels,  _ past a vast, empty nothingness, he kills to escape the possibility, blade drawn and blood blood  _ blood. _

Not healthy, he knows. Nothing about him has ever been remotely fucking  _ healthy  _ and he hates himself for it, for his mental issues and for how he has been forced to react to them. The voices scream for blood, now, as he enters L’Manhole — a destruction he will  _ never  _ be guilty about — wandering toward the SMP-Center with his sword swinging by his side. He has removed his retirement robes, replaced by blood-red, and waits for an attack. Phil walks by his side, silent and thoughtful. Together they walk like an unstoppable force. Centuries of Death, and years of Blood. 

Now, they search for family. 

Techno has never been Tommy’s closest ally; not for blood or for connection. But his betrayal had  _ hurt,  _ far more than any had in years, and so Techno had taken Tommy’s penance in blood. And Phil had been content to let him do so, the God of Death himself gifting his prerogative to that of Blood. 

Technoblade does not make apologies. But he thinks of how he might, as he itches, wishing far more he was visiting for violent blood than that of familial bonds. 

At least the sunset is a comforting shade of crimson, thinks Techno as they make their way to Big Innit hotel. It’s early dawn, with birds chirping and barely a soul around, but neither Phil nor Techno are worried about being spotted. They walk through the streets with a promise about as hollow as their souls — that is to say, as unbreakable as obsidian — to kill whoever gets in their way, no matter how unspoken. It isn’t that their cause right now is particularly important, but the flair of being villainized certainly comes in handy when you want a clear path to their goal. 

“You don’t think he actually built it, huh?” Asks Techno, eyes pointed toward the massive structure of his youngest brother’s hotel. (Only brother’s.) 

Phil lets out a distracted noise of acknowledgment. Techno goes quiet in the awkwardness, starting to realize that his father might be more worried than he. He doesn’t speak again, substituting noise for a quick listen into the voices in his head. It leads to more than a few murmured reassurances and admonishments as they shout different things —  _ blood, blood, hurtinnit, hurtson, hurtdad, hurtblade, blood, blood, blood, hurt, hurt, kill.  _

Big Innit hotel is silent. There seems to be not a soul around, as wind whistles through the lobby, the doors unlocked and only taking a shifting of construction tape to open. Philza whistles and listens as the sound bounces around, echoing off of glass and marble and stone and brick. It’s quite a work of art, Techno must admit. Nothing like what Wilbur could’ve done, but certainly done in good taste considering the boy who had commissioned it. He stands and admires the surroundings for a moment longer, long, calloused fingers sliding across a couch, the blood-red and velvet fabric pathetically soft beneath his fingers. 

Something whistles past his ear. Techno whips around just in time to block another arrow, the tip glowing with the telltale signs of harming. Phil’s wings are tucked and folded in an instant, his own weapon drawn just in time to block one from flying right into Techno’s  _ skull. _

Then, as quickly as they begin, the weapons stop, footsteps come pattering down the stairs of the hotel, and Techno prepares to shoot. It’s an eerie sort of speed. 

“What are  _ you doing here?”  _ Says Tommy, coming into view with a bow in his hands. Behind him, Sam dashes down the stairs, an exasperated look on his face as he clearly tries to stop Tommy from shooting anyone else. 

Techno gapes at them, not quite ready to sheath his weapon. “Why’re you trying to  _ shoot us,  _ Tommy!” 

The boy in question scoffs. “Well- well you ran into my hotel without even  _ knocking,  _ Blade! Of course I was gonna defend my stuff. You’d do the same,  _ wouldn’t you?” _

The tail of his sentence is spit with venom. When Techno looks closer, he sees a condemning look in his brother’s eyes.

Phil splays his wings back out in a shuffling motion behind him. It’s a movement of submission, a soft, fatherly smile on his face. “Tommy, I’m sorry. We didn’t know that you or Sam were here, we just wanted to see what you were up to.”

_ This  _ seems to get to Tommy. He lowers his bow and lets out a begrudging groan, tucking it into his inventory. It seems he isn’t the only one on edge, though, as Sam’s hand never leaves the hilt of his trident. 

“Ok,  _ bitches _ . But… why?” He walks down a few more stairs, Sam quietly following behind. “Why’d you even come out here? I know how much you fuckin’ hate it.”

“We don’t hate  _ you,  _ Tommy. I can bear a bit of a break from terrorism enough to see you,” says Techno with a scoff. 

“Exactly,” Phil says, nodding. “We heard about what happened. Of course we were concerned, kiddo.”

Almost as if on reflex, Tommy’s hand comes up to his chest. He frowns, the moment’s pause giving Techno to look closer.

Tommy is thin. Impossibly thin. His bones jut out awkwardly, his jaw and chin a thin, clenched line as he stares down at his family. Scars and cuts mar the exposed parts of his skin, face pocked by small, fingernail-shaped divots, arms carved with scrapes. His face is sunken and exhausted, eyes trapped between purpling bags. His hair is waxy and tan rather than gold, tied up in the back with a low ponytail, matching the style of Sam’s, dark green and in a short braid. It’s enough, for a moment, for Techno to see Wilbur within him. There’s a crazed insomniac in Tommy’s eyes, mania stark in his shaking limbs. The Blood God shakes his head and the boy returns to be his brother and his youngest brother alone, if exhausted and sad.

“Oh?” Tommy snorts. “Well, you can go back home. I’m fine. Top shape. Perfectly healthy. Lots of women and drugs, too, being shipped right my way right now, in fact, so you might want to leave before they get here. Yeah, Blade, you’re not a coke man, are you? Hm? Hm?”

He talks a mile a minute, Techno has to admit. Philza lets out a chuckle — one not quite genuine — and shrugs. 

“What can we say, Tommy? We wanted-“

“Wanted to what?” Interrupts Sam, abruptly. “I already told you what must be done, Philza.”

And oh- that reminder somehow hurts more than Techno had been expecting. It seems to his Phil even harder, the man’s wings twitching away as if shying from a weapon. It’s a scary thing to watch the man slump, eyes dimming in the yellowing light of the sun outside. 

Tommy’s expression slides into concussion. “Wait- what did you tell him, Sam?” 

Wait.

“You didn’t tell him?” Techno steps forward, frowning deeply. “You didn’t even ask  _ Tommy  _ before you told Phil, eh?”

Oh, caught green-handed. Sam shifts in what Techno hopes is uncomfortableness as he realizes what he’s said, looking once between Tommy and Phil and then back to Techno. Their gazes pause for a long moment, daring each other to respond. 

Then Sam turns back to Tommy, addressing the boy and only him.

“I told Philza I’d be taking temporary custody of you,” says Sam, his voice devoid of nerves. It’s a facade, though — Techno can see it in the squeeze of his fist, the distinct line of anxiety in his posture. And with a sickeningly triumphant feeling, Techno sees Tommy’s face warp into something awkwardly confused.

“Wait- huh? Like- like you’re just adopting me? Without even  _ asking?” _

Sam lets out a wheeze and starts with a shout: “No!” He barks, composure failing. “No, Tommy. All it meant was that I’d be taking care of you until you’re better. As soon as you’re healthy again, you can go back to doing what you want. Whether that’s go back to your- your family, or leaping between people’s houses and your hotel again. I have no claim over you, and I don’t intend to force you into doing anything. I just know that making sure you have a  _ stable-“  _ Techno ignores the stab of annoyance at the implications of that word for his own home “-place to live while you are in recovery is the best chance for you to be able to do so  _ quickly.” _

To Techno’s surprise, Tommy just…

Nods.

He takes a moment, but after a thought and a soft noise, Tommy nods, accepting the truth of the argument with barely a worry. He even takes a step closer to Sam, tucking himself closer to the creeper-hybrid’s side, the elder man pressing an arm to his back in silent support.

Techno does not apologize. He does not worry. He does not regret. He-

Why does he  _ feel  _ like this?

Phil lets out a long sigh as that tangent ends. He shoves a hand through his hair — subtly shaking, Techno can see it, as close as they are, making him want to draw someone’s blood, be it his or not — and smiles back up at Tommy, less sure. “I wanted to… see you. I wanted to have proof you were alright. Sam said you were ok, but Techno and I both wanted to see that.”

The boy shifts uncomfortably. He’s finally made his way down the stairs, standing only a foot or two away from his family. Looking up at Phil, he is defiant, something unidentifiable harsh in his eyes. 

“Well, you’ve got your proof. Since when do you  _ care?” _

And that sends something sharp and almost angry through Techno. Tommy has betrayed  _ him.  _ Instituted government as his brother  _ died  _ to see it gone. But when he bristled, Philza presses a hand to his arm, sharp, talons of fingers digging into the bandaged surface. Tommy sees it all with a flickering look, switching between Techno, Philza, Sam, and open air. 

“Tommy,” Phil says, his voice almost wounded. He steps forward, releasing Techno and placing a gentle hand on Tommy’s forearm, shifting downward to hold his hand. Tommy’s clenched jaw trembles, his breath hitching. From Techno’s place not far away, he can see tears form in his little brother’s eyes. “Tommy, it was  _ never  _ a matter of not  _ caring.  _ We just… didn’t want to come if you didn’t want to see us.”

“And why would I not want to see you?” he cries, pulling his hand away from Phil’s. “You- all I ever wanted was to do right by you! All I ever wanted was to be  _ good,  _ and you- you destroyed  _ everything  _ I’d built! Everything me and Tubbo made!”

Sam has migrated up to Tommy’s side. There’s a gentleness in the way he stands, trident carefully held, body poised to protect. He reminds Techno of Wilbur, in some ways, always ready to play the sacrifice.

But no- that’s not quite right. Sam is no brother to Tommy, no builder nor singer nor story-teller. The way Sam stands is more reminiscent of  _ Phil,  _ with a fierce, loving protectiveness to his stance. 

Only Sam can’t even tell. 

“Tommy, just because we’ve got differin’ political opinions doesn’t mean we’re arch enemies,” Techno says, a bit exasperated. But Tommy only glares harder, the frown lines about his eyes accentuated.

“Oh, oh  _ does it? _ Cause you blew up my whole country just in the name of fucking  _ anarchy,  _ you bitch!”

“And you  _ betrayed  _ me for the sake of your own cause!” Techno throws a hand up — disregarding Tommy’s flinch, disregarding the way Sam pulls forward and closer, his trident raised higher. “Our point is that blood is thicker than fuckin’  _ political alignments,  _ especially when I find out my brother had a god-damned  _ heart attack!” _

“Oh- oh yeah? That the same brother you left all alone in Logstedshire? Same brother you- you- or wait, is it the same brother you pushed to  _ insanity?  _ Or the son you  _ murdered?”  _ Tommy whips around and tugs something out of his inventory — a bow, loaded and ready — and throws it at Techno. The hybrid in question fumbles it for a moment before he manages to get a good grasp, confused, frowning. “Do it, then! It’s your fucking  _ bloodright, eh, Techno?  _ Since you were always the closest to Phil. Always the  _ favorite.”  _

_ Oh. _

Techno does not make apologies.

But his chest  _ burns. _

Sam steps forward. He walks past Tommy and up to a Techno with an aura of  _ anger _ , though his expression is no less concealed. Techno doesn’t flinch as Sam reaches over, taking the bundled weapon from his arms. From behind him, Tommy’s breath comes harsh, a low wheeze to it. Sam shoves the bow into his inventory and shoots Techno and Phil a  _ warning glance,  _ to say the least, before he turns around to look at Tommy.

“I think you should leave,” is all he says, in a soft, almost  _ sad  _ sort of voice. He’s curled and bent over, concealing Tommy from view, tall and imposing. Techno remembers days in which Phil had done the same, wings stretched and hiding his children from view.

Techno does not make apologies.

(But he wishes he knew how.)

—-

“You ok, Tommy?”

The boy nods. His sandy hair, overgrown and started to fall from his ponytail, flips about. His breath comes in short pants, his eyes still trapped in a glare, despite Philza and Techno already having left.

“Yeah- yeah ‘m good. Just all-  _ oooh,  _ they got me all fuckin’...  _ fired up  _ and  _ shit.”  _ He huffs, shuffling backward. Sam sees his breaths start to even, his fingers twitching at his side, and stands, looking at his ally with a concealed look of concern. “Tryna- tryna come into my hotel. Fuck around. Dickheads.”

Sam lets out a dry laugh. “Sure. Total dickheads. What was it with you handing your bow off, though?”

Tommy looks flippant about the whole situation. He wave a hand. Sam can still see it shake. His blood burns. 

“Eh, I knew he wasn’t gonna do it. Techno wants me dead, sure, but he wouldn’t do it in front of Phil.” Contrary to what Sam thinks Tommy believes, that answer is not heartening. “I’m a big fellow. I can handle myself.”

“I never said you couldn’t,” replies Sam softly. Then he sighs, and runs a hand through his coarse, green hair, flicking back flyaways as he turns around. “Can I leave you here with Nook? I have something to attend to. If not, I can always wait for later.”

“Yeah, yeah, go do your work, big man. Seal up the prison! And- and batten the hatches, and establish government presence!” Tommy pumps a fist weakly in the air, watching as Sam lets out a huff of a laugh and crosses over to the front desk. Nook aimlessly wipes at the counter, raccoon tail sweeping back and forth behind him. 

“Deactivate idle mode.” The mechanical being freezes at the command, his eyes, carefully shrouded, blinking back sleep. “Morning, Nook. Tommy’s here to keep working with you, alright?”

The other being nods and chitters, Sam pulling out his communicator to see a long string of words. “I AM HAPPY TO SEE HE IS ALRIGHT. SHOULD I SET HIM ON TO ANY SPECIFIC TASKS TODAY, SAM?”

He thinks for a moment, considering Tommy. He still looks tired, and Sam knows, above anything, recovery is their priority. 

“Make sure he takes a nap,” he supplies quietly. “And nothing too hard. He’s had a rough go of it. Keep everyone else other than me, Tubbo, The Warden, and Captain Puffy of the property. Sapnap is on  _ thin ice.  _ And if anyone gets too rowdy, get them out. I want Tommy safe.”

Nook nods, his tail curling behind him to type into his communicator. “ALWAYS.”

Sam leaves the hotel behind with unmatched confidence to his step. Nook is his creation the same as The Warden, and the two are just as efficient in killing and defense as anything. 

So he only looks back once, not especially worried for Tommy’s safety. The boy is grinning wildly up at Nook and gesturing around with a piece of paper, his voice just barely audible through the doors. 

He meets Puffy at about half-past nine. She’s leaned up against a wall and paging through a book, inconspicuous and quiet in a way that has always suited her. 

It’s the best way to throw people off the moment you draw your blade; the moment you slit their neck. 

“Any sightings?” Asks Sam in lieu of a greeting, nodding when her head perks up. 

Puffy lets out a sigh and folds her book. “None. It seems Nook scared him out of resurfacing, but I’m nervous that he might be planning something. He’s still trying to convince everyone that Tommy tried to let Dream out.”

He lets out a soft curse behind his mask. It’s funny, really, he can’t think of anyone besides Puffy that he feels comfortable doing something as simple as  _ cursing  _ around. It reminds him too much of being a child, explosive, born to those who would want nothing but to burn like their ancestors. But now, he shakes his head, a hiss building in his throat. “How gullible are the citizens in this God-forsaken SMP?”

Puffy just chuckles. “Oh, very. Sometimes I feel like you and I are the only ones who know how to sense lies at  _ all.  _ Shall we?”

“We shall,” he says, as they start to walk. There’s no strict plan as they wander, taking residence of side paths and hidden streets. He holds a trident, her a sword, swinging about their sides as they silently stalk their homes. 

Few citizens wander, all much too caught up to bother worrying about two neutral parties. Sam and Puffy are enemies of one and friend to most, only taking the time to truly  _ hate  _ The Egg. 

(But now only allies are on their mind, as they search for a liar and find hope for a child.)

Information comes when they stumble upon L’Manhole. Sitting perched on a small pile of bricks stands Niki, scowling as her sword trails across the rubble. It burns sparks into the air, scratching, making bumping noises as it goes. Puffy holds an arm out to stop Sam and slides down a foot or two, observing her friend with narrowed eyes. Then, called down: 

“What is it?”

Niki looks up and glares harder, looking into the early morning fog to find Puffy. Sam stays concealed in the background, immediately understanding that the trust given to one is not for him as well. 

“Had a night terror. I ended up here,” responds Niki, voice soft and effeminate and a mockery of kindness. Sam vaguely remembers passing by a flower store once, listening to a cheery voice bounce between Puffy and another. That voice is gone, now, replaced with something hardened and almost scared. “My sleepwalking is getting worse.”

Puffy slides further down, leaping off a jutting yellow platform to land only feet from her friend. Their speech is distant, but with his enhanced hearing, Sam has the misfortune of hearing every mournful word. 

“I haven’t seen you in a bit,” Puffy replies, cautious, reaching a hand out for Niki. The other girl does not take it. Their age difference is not large, but Niki looks aeons older, eyes shadowed black and hair a mess of badly-cut blonde hair. Her hands bleed down onto the bricks beneath her. “You been avoiding me?”

Niki shakes her head. “I’ve been doing other things. I’ve got bigger priorities.” She winces at her own wording. It seems to hit her, how odd she acts, and she stands, wiping her bloody hands off on her shorts. “Sorry… I just meant that I’ve been… working. I don’t wanna get betrayed anymore.”

Sam doesn’t know Niki well, but the voice pulls at something inside of him. She sounds lost. Not angry, not even sad, losing the kind and the angry he’d seen from her both. The way her legs stumble, the way Puffy’s hand closes around hers, the shivering way her lips seem to tremble. Niki, in many ways, is still like a child. 

(They all are. Sam has to remind himself often. When your childhood is torn by war and grief and death and orange-red flames, explosions ringing in ears still covered by shaking hands, you don’t have a childhood. You have an  _ experience.) _

“You know I won’t, sweetheart,” says Puffy, leaning closer. Niki’s eyes slide closed as her jaw clenches, and she leans back. “Niki, you  _ have to know.  _ I will love you forever and I will love you for  _ always.” _

Sam has never had this. He had seen it once, with Ponk and with the security the man brought. They had weakened over years. They had never been  _ this.  _ He shuts his eyes for the briefest of moments as Puffy loops her hand around Niki’s back, whispering something clearly private. 

It’s over in a moment. Sam lets out a sigh. He isn’t sure whether it’s in grief or not.

“Where’s Jack? I hear you two made friends?” 

Niki nods wordlessly, clearly perking up. “We’re like Team Rocket, a bit. We just split off for the day. I’ve got things to do, hm? People to collect debts from. People to kill.” Then, as if noticing the subtle worry in Puffy’s eyes: “metaphorically.”

The Captain lets out a chuckle, but even  _ Sam  _ can hear it as false. “That’s better than nothing, I guess. Got any plans for the day? Are you planning to meet with him again?”

For a moment, Sam can’t quite decipher the look in Niki’s eyes, from his perch high above. Then it registers, as she swivels her head about curiously.  _ Suspicion.  _ The question had clearly been too much. Puffy backpedals quickly, letting out a laugh as if she hadn’t even asked anything at all. 

“Because I’d like to see if you’re matching, if you’d let me.”

This seems to appease Niki, some, because her eyes focus back on Puffy, a low giggle rumbling through her. “Eh, not quite. How’s my emo look, though? I’m quite proud of it!” She does a little twirl; Puffy grins. Sam feels like an intruder. 

“Lovely! Like a regular Jessie. Or James! Or Meowth.”

Niki lights up. Her sword goes back to pattering against the ground as she shifts about. “I’ve got a parrot named after him now! He flew into my base one day and I thought it would be cute. Little Meowth.”

Then:

Disaster.

Sam’s leg twitches. He’s always had trouble with things such as that — a jerk of his neck, or a subtle flinch of his hands. Working so close with flame and gears and machinery has helped, some, his brain subconsciously closing off anything but the finest of deliberate movement. But he supposes the benefits of being a creeper hybrid are far outweighed by the costs. It isn’t even much a movement, really, but his knee twists and his ankle jerks, and suddenly, a pile of rubble slides down a few feet more. 

Niki’s eyes narrow on his spot in an instant. Her hands are clutching a crossbow and shield a second later, deadly aim not straying from the closest spot to his concealed area that she can reach. 

She searches. The wind howls, deep into the earth below him, cave openings filtering long-dead creatures into the open air. Sam watches and waits as her hands fold over her weapons. He knows something about how it feels to pull a hair-trigger. 

“Show yourself!” She shouts into the wind, eyes spitting fire. Where Sam's movement is a quick, uncontrollable thing, hers is swift and angry, pointing all of her growing paranoia and anger his way. His chest pounds as he stares an apology into Puffy’s back, hoping to god she can feel it. In his anxiety, his leg nearly jerks again. 

Then, there’s his ally. Captain Puffy raises her hands and maneuvers to stand in front of the weapons, for all the world calm and unafraid. 

“Hey- hey, put the crossbow down, Niki,” she coaxes, immediately jumping to Sam’s defense. Or, more accurately, the defense of a falling pile of  _ rocks.  _

The girl in question refuses to budge. She fires a warning shot. “Who did you bring with you, Captain?”

And Puffy — Sam can see it in her face the moment she turns, apologetic — will not lie. She isn’t even given a chance. 

“We’re gonna kill them,” Niki says, though her voice breaks into a sob as she goes. “I deserve my  _ apologies.” _

Then, as if an afterthought:

“And  _ he  _ will be first.”

Sam falls into a sprint the moment the next arrow flies. The unspoken threat — behind the original — in Niki’s words is obvious. Them is not simple ambiguity; it is a promise for  _ more,  _ for everyone to write their letters of sorrow in their own blood, tied together in a basket of intestines. There’s an unhinged and broken quality to her voice, instantly reminding Sam of all the other broken children he can never save. Puffy’s pleads fall back into the background as he runs, dashing through the roads and leaping over boxes, someone chasing after him. He has no time to look back and check — for he knows he is not their target.

Somewhere, a hotel burns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. FUnny story. 
> 
> Someone: Sets Big Innit hotel on fire
> 
> Sam: oh fuck where's the babysitter gone


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sO. ABOUT THAT NEW TOMMYINNIT STREAM?
> 
> *falls apart on the floor* jesus fucking christ what the fuck just fucking happened
> 
> anyways warnings for this very much filler completely unimportant chapter/s
> 
> There is body horror/gore in this. It's not pretty. 
> 
> Enjoy!

When Tommy was a child, Wilbur had begun to smoke.

Phil hadn’t liked it much. He’d flick the things out of his son’s hands whenever he got a chance, throwing away cartons and lighters with prejudice. 

At sixteen, Wilbur was a lanky lump of a boy. His limbs hadn’t quite fit him right, his hair a floppy mess, everything about him screaming adolescence. In his arms had been a guitar that did not fit him yet, arms barely long enough to loop over it and strum. He’d looked at Tommy with fond, loving, clear eyes, smoking something orange-tipped and drifting grey everywhere, smelling bad.

Tommy had asked why Wilbur smoked. Why he played with fire — literally — in terms of his asthma. Tommy had been no stranger to self-sabotage, even at not even 9, but he’d been curious, and his brother had been kind.

Wilbur had barked out a laugh and let Tommy take a puff. It’d been awful. Then, with a smile and a glass of water pressed into his brother’s hand, Wilbur had said it was for the aesthetic. 

Now, as Tommy stands outside of his hotel, Nook standing by his side, frozen, staring, he understands what his brother had meant.

The blaze is beautiful. He’s seen fires before, pitting the land, great encompassing breaths of orange and red. He’d seen fields obliterated, homes destroyed, screams ringing like tinnitus. But never has he watched one so odd as this, all wrapped in the deep burgundy hues of something that had been a part of him. He can’t seem to take a breath as he watches the top of the hotel start to cave in.

Noise floods back to ringing ears as he drops the box of tools he’d been carrying. Someone is laughing. Tommy turns and sees Jack standing there, outlined by red, eyes  _ maddened.  _ He practically froths at the mouth, arms outstretched like some sort of terrible martyr. His hands are burnt and destroyed. Skin drips from his forearms like wet globs of slime. The laughter barely sounds like anything other than a scream.

“How does it feel?” Jack shouts, above the roar of fire and the collapsing building before him. The pink sludge of his fingers drips away, exposing the jagged white of bone. Tommy watches in horror as the boy wipes the gristle off on his face like warpaint. “How does it  _ feel?”  _ He cackles, sharp and frantic and horrible, “To finally feel hell, Tommy? To feel what you  _ made me feel!” _

Tommy barely remembers letting Jack fall through the lava, now. He has no image in his mind as he thinks back to the event. All he remembers is the temptation to follow. 

Only a foot away, Nook walks forward and stretches his trident out protectively. For once, it makes Tommy feel coddled. He moves to the side of his protector; then stumbles past, heart rattling against his ribs as he watches Jack’s arms start to fall apart, having gotten too close to the fire he had started.

“I- I didn’t-” Tommy swallows down bile. He’d only been gone for a  _ moment,  _ leaving to help Nook get some stupid box of  _ hammers  _ and  _ screws  _ and  _ nails _ , such a meaningless task that Tommy hadn’t blinked once at the idea of taking his time. Returning to his hotel, which he’d paid with  _ so much to build,  _ feels almost like losing L’Manberg all over again, a little like watching his nation be destroyed. He thinks he can see Wilbur in the fire, writhing, screaming, a knife gutting him through his chest. Tommy’s throat is dry like he’s back at seven years old, choking down cigarette smoke and watching as Wilbur describes his poison.  _ Aesthetic. _

Then, from behind Jack, comes others, all carrying weapons, the front of the group sprinting to the boy’s side as his legs finally give out. The charred scent of Jack’s skin finally hits Tommy’s nose as Niki, enderpearling from somewhere unseen, falls to his side. She lets out a cry of alarm as she sees the white of his bones, the black bubbling up and out of his ruined skin. Then, with a choked noise and the support of at least fifteen others, Niki starts to speak.

Quackity looks at the hotel with a mixture of nausea and confusion. Foolish, Antfrost, and Bad stand by his side, Purpled not far behind. There’s Callahan and Connor, Eret, Fundy, even, Skeppy and Punz, and even  _ Drista,  _ though it seems she’s ditched her brother’s mask. All in one swift movement Tommy realizes he’s lost all but one of his allies, nearly half the SMP in varying stages of shock, rage, and fear. 

Tommy remembers the other day, how Puffy had been about to say something, something about how dire a situation the one with Jack had been. She’d stopped herself. Tommy had let her. His blood chills as he recognizes the common look in the mass’s eyes. Betrayal.

“How  _ could you?”  _ Screams Niki with a voice louder than he has ever heard it before. She clutches Jack to her side and brushes the hair out of his face, eyes  _ terrified  _ when his roll into his head. His hands fall limp at his sides and she's quick to throw a potion at their feet, fire resistance only saving Jack from the deepest of his burns. What’s done is done, and it’s clear that she knows when the healing potion she tosses next does little to quell the burning. 

“I- I didn’t do this,” Tommy stammers, lurching forward quickly, the only one coming to his own defense. “I didn’t do this!”

“Not  _ Jack!”  _ Nicki snarls at him protectively. “Jack’s like this because you’re a sick  _ jerk, sure,  _ but not  _ this!  _ How could you let him out! How could you  _ do that,  _ after  _ everything he’s done to us!” _

That stops Tommy in his tracks, he flinches, confusion flooding in. So this  _ isn’t  _ Jack’s usual vendetta, abnormally strong and abnormally violent. 

“Say she’s lying, Tommy.”

The request comes from his nephew. Tommy’s eyes swivel, his heart doing a funny sort of jerk as Fundy steps forward, the bottom of his muzzle twitching with the force of holding back tears. He looks  _ devastated,  _ as if Tommy has delivered the news of his father’s death all over again. 

“Did- did he really get to you?” Fundy looks at Tommy like he’s a different man altogether. “You wouldn’t try to  _ let him out.” _

And all at once, he realizes who they’re all talking about. They think that’s why he was gone. Why he’d been in prison for days and at home for longer, why he hadn’t contacted anyone, and why Sam had been so  _ quiet.  _ They think he’s tried to let Dream out, tried to set a dictator back upon them all as soon as they got rid of him, presumably  _ at Tommy’s behest.  _ He stumbles backward at the surprise of it all, his breath hitching in his chest. Nook seems more than pleased to replace him, weapon held out and machinery stoic. His tail wraps around Tommy’s wrist. It’s a silent gesture, but not underappreciated.

But, they all must take Tommy's surprise as an affirmative. Fundy lets out a low, wounded noise, something like a cross between a wolf and a fox, predatory and broken all the same. Half of the people he’d come to call allies look stricken, Quackity’s eyes going wide, Eret’s careful trust broken, Connor’s  _ fear  _ returned, evident, striking. 

Bad must  _ really  _ have it out for him too, because Tommy knows that the man doesn’t give a damn whether Dream lives or dies, escapes or rots, but he jumps forward anyways, rallying Ant and tossing his trident into the air. It erupts into lightning a foot where Tommy had  _ just  _ stood, only shoved out of the way by Nook at the nick of time. 

The being thrusts his own weapon out to catch Ant’s sword, starting to taking on the two men as the rest of the crowd behind them starts to agree that  _ yes, Tommy needs to be captured. _

_ Or killed,  _ he thinks, as his heart thunders, painful, and he dodges an arrow poised for his chest. Fundy’s betrayed face pops up an instant later and Tommy only barely raises his sword from his inventory in time to block a strike. 

They fight along for a moment, trading blows, before Tommy sweeps an elbow up and crunches it into his nephew’s jaw. Fundy falls back with an enraged scowl only to be replaced by two other people. They’re just faces now, and Tommy’s heart pangs (in pain) in worry as Nook takes on three others, a deep gouge carved into the metal of his back. The moment’s distraction finds a blade to his throat, and his eyes widen as someone pulls it in slow motion, going to slit, to rip, to  _ tear- _

A heavy pair of wings slams into the person. Niki goes flying as grey feathers tangle with her limbs, the scraggly and ancient things flexing as they stretch to a span of nearly eighteen feet, startling the battle into quiet, if only for a moment. A blade goes through one — and Phil grabs the blade in his  _ bare hands,  _ ripping it from the person’s grip and scattering it.

_ “Go!”  _ Shouts Tommy’s estranged father, eyes red with rage, a frightening look to be faced with. Behind him stands Techno, their backs to each other and a firework launching into the fray. The war that has begun seems to be growing as Tommy stumbles, feet barely working as he manages to dive past the barrel of a pistol. 

Phil bellows in something that sounds devastatingly like  _ hate _ , sweeping down low so his wings coast the ground, grabbing a discarded blade and thrusting it into the chest of someone who has disappeared by the time Tommy can see blood start to run. 

His feet patter heavily along the concrete as he retreats. There’s nowhere to go, and Tommy sprints, legs tripping and stumbling over weeds, breathing so loud he can barely hear the people chasing after him. Wind whistles in his ears as he barely manages to get an ender pearl and run, only looking behind once more to see a mob chasing him, ever faster. Random citizens have joined in, following their allies and leaders.

In the far distance, Techno’s back is littered with arrows. Tommy wants to let out a sob.

There’s no time, though, and he hits the solid ground with a run. There’s no time to analyze where he’s landed, vision blurring, and the scent of burning following him everywhere. He’s in the hotel, and he’s in L’Manberg, and he’s in the prison, and Tommy cannot see for his vision twisting like  _ stars. _

Someone else must have pearls. It’s a free for all as some nondescript person, their face too blurred by sweat and tears and  _ is that blood where is he cut at  _ for Tommy to see them fully. But he’s quick enough still to rip through the air with his sword, bending under the creaking force of their throw. Netherite hits his Diamond as they rain blows upon each other, a stitch in Tommy’s side. He bends and ducks beneath a wide, open wing, their movement growing lazy as the others catch up. He’s being  _ toyed with,  _ he realizes with a jolt, and he swerves to the side, breaking into a sprint. 

_ “You can’t always run!”  _ Hollers someone from the side. Tommy would laugh if he had the breath, because oh, they so clearly underestimate him. Tommy is the  _ king,  _ with a monopoly on the chase, notorious for being caught only when it serves him. He throws a pearl and lands in a run -- less sure in his movements, this time -- running through someone’s backyard and feeling his pants rip at the grip of thorns. 

Things tangle at his legs; a blade whistles past his face. Tommy pearls again. 

_ It’s his last one,  _ and he ducks, someone tossing down a stick of TnT that explodes only feet away, the blast singing hair off his ears.  _ Just like Jack’s arms,  _ he thinks intrusively, the image of charred and bloodless limbs rushing past his unworking eyes, so destroyed that they no longer have the strength to bleed. He scrapes for purchase against a sudden fence, leaping up and over and letting out a sharp noise of pain as his ankle twists funnily. 

There’s no time to worry about it, though. He’s already back to running by the time someone actually  _ explodes  _ the fence, a screaming laugh that sounds suspiciously like Bad’s ringing out. Tommy closes his eyes for a moment, thinking of times when fewer people on the server were  _ utterly unhinged. _

Then he slams into a solid mass.

First, he’s just like:  _ oh! This is where I die. I suppose explosions are more badass than a heart attack!  _ He stutters back a step and lets out a weak, undignified squeak, curses falling out a moment later when the thing  _ moves.  _ It’s a figure, and its arms stretch out, clad in gold and netherite, form practically irradiating menace. And, from deep within the person’s form comes a hiss, growing and building as lit TnT waits to explode. 

Wait- that’s not quite right.

Strong arms come from the man and wrap suddenly around Tommy. A cloak, layered fabric that smells like redstone and dust, whips about Tommy’s back as someone shoves him around, chucking a firework behind them and shielding Tommy from the blast. 

_ Sam.  _ Tommy really does let out a sob. 

Several people scream as gunpowder meets skin. The ground erupts into powerful rumbles as a bomb far too powerful to be legal shakes the world, shrapnel rattling off the back of Sam’s chest plate where he’s bowed over Tommy, protectively shoving him to a crouch. Charred flesh and raining nightmares and fire and war flickers through the air, full on hell breaking out as everyone and their mother finds an excuse to join the cause. People fight Tommy, people fight Sam, people fight Technoblade and Philza and Nicki and Jack and Connor and Fundy and- and  _ everyone,  _ blood vendettas and grudges cropping up as rioting citizens draw their swords.

But Sam’s there, now, and Tommy clutches desperately at the front of his forearm where it presses gently into his chest. 

“Dickheads blew up my hotel,” is all he can manage, along with a weak cough. “Fuckin’ dick’eds blew up m’- m’ hotel.”

For a moment, Sam doesn’t respond. Then he uncurls around Tommy, crawling up to his full, daunting height. Seven-foot-four is a normal sight for Tommy, but now, Sam looks anything but friendly. He looks  _ murderous,  _ and for once, Tommy finds it on his behalf.

_ “Tommyinnit is under my protection, along with that of The Warden and Sam Nook! This is your only warning!”  _ Shout Sam, voice hoarse. He does not speak to Tommy, only shielding him, a scream ringing out as Tommy suddenly realizes the fighting stops  _ here.  _ It all cumulates where they stand, each person who has been trying to kill him  _ there,  _ even Niki, clearly having escaped from Phil. “I will not hesitate to throw another one of these!”

“How can you  _ defend him,”  _ snarls Niki, all that had once been loving within her clearly dead in some way or another. Tommy’s trembling hand tightens on his sword as he moves to Sam’s side, eyes narrowing, vision returning. It’s as if his body can’t feel anything, function frozen by adrenaline, fear  _ gone  _ now that he has an  _ ally.  _ He’s only determined now to stop weakness from showing, anger in place of pain. “How can you do that, Sam! He tried to destroy  _ your  _ prison!”

Sam falters. He almost laughs, Tommy thinks, but it could just be a creeper’s hiss. He hasn’t let that noise up since he arrived, slowly building, and Tommy’s afraid the man might  _ actually  _ explode.

“The source of the breach is  _ undefined.  _ You have  _ no idea  _ what you’re talking about, do you, Nihachu?” He steps forward and holds a stick of TnT menacingly in front of him. “Tommy was trapped in the prison with Dream. He had absolutely nothing to do with  _ any  _ of the breaches. If he had, he’d have been  _ dead where he stood.” _

Tommy can see where the rest of the angry mob falters. The fighting seems to pause some as the key parts of it listen, Bad and Ant the only two still in full tilt. 

“Manifold  _ lied  _ to you.” 

Niki shoots an arrow at Sam in her surprise. Tommy’s blade curves up and over, snapping it in half before it can even hit his armor. His speed frighten her; she takes a step back 

“Manifold lied to all of you,” he continues, as murmurs break out. “Why do you think he burnt that hotel down? That was  _ Nook’s  _ build; it was only commissioned by Tommy. He wanted the flair. And now he’s paying for it, and you all suck it up because you want someone to  _ hate.”  _

“He burnt his fucking arms off for a  _ lie?”  _ Tommy gapes at Niki. He’d assumed she’d been in on it. She writhes uncomfortably at the thought, her eyes starting to water. “He- he got me all- all- You all are starting another fucking  _ war  _ for a  _ lie?” _

His breath comes heavy. Tommy feels heat in his chest, burning so hot he thinks for a moment he might have been burnt at the hotel. He thinks of Phil, never enough and never trusting. He thinks of Techno, so angry, so unwilling to  _ listen.  _ And, most of all, he thinks of them up framed by the burning hotel, the two of them coming to his aid.

(He also thinks of Sam. he thinks of strong arms, nearly a hug, of netherite and gold, a familiar comfort. He thinks of how it feels to have a father, and he thinks about Sam.) 

“No.” Niki shakes her head, taking a step back. Suddenly, she seems far less sure of herself. “No. Jack- No. Jack wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but he  _ did.”  _ Sam steps forward. His voice is dangerously low. He sounds dark, and something inside Tommy is almost comforted by it. He’s so accustomed to that tone being for him, being for every mistake he’s ever made, coming from friends and brothers and everyone else. To see it is on his behalf is something deeply satisfying. “Did you think Tommy would be alive, if he hadn’t? Do you really think I’d have let Tommy under my protection? Because he  _ is.  _ You will  _ not  _ hurt him.”

Niki chokes on a sob. There’s a great wobbling of her legs, and she falls, sword clattering to the ground as the weight of his words seems to slam into her in one great wave. She waves a hand behind her and the few people still fighting pause as if under her command. Someone comes running through the parting crowd, all white hair and horns, her captain hat falling, torn through with an arrow.

“Niki!” Puffy shouts, dashing to her side and turning, gripping the girl’s shoulders in a crushing hold. “Niki, you have to stop this. I’m  _ begging you-” _

“It’s already done,” she interrupts, her tone warbling and sad. “I- it’s done. I’m done. I’m  _ tired.” _

Tommy watches as the Captain swallows down a wounded cry. And, for some odd reason… he feels  _ miserable  _ for his former friend. He’s been so far into the offensive that he’s nearly forgotten how it felt, to pity, even those who have hurt him. Niki has no shadow of the determined and kind young girl he’d known her as, all erased and covered up with anger and angst. 

But a hand flattens against his back, and he doesn’t think as Sam helps guide him to sit on the ground. It’s only then that he notices how exhausted he is. His limbs are jelly, shaking as his head slumps over, barely able to hold itself up. The man before him is blocking his view of the war, but honestly, it seems as if things have begun to calm. There are wounded -- he sees The Blade and Philza, far off and high up on a hill, tending to themselves. Quackity has secluded himself with Fundy and begun to search for an ice pack. All about, the war ends, almost as quickly as it started. Niki sobs quietly, cupped in Puffy’s arms, so small as she’s shushed. Bad and Ant look lost, wandering amongst burning city streets and people who are starting to become corpses. They still look like they want to kill. He couldn’t care less. 

Tommy’s chest aches. His vision still hasn’t recovered.

“Hey,” Sam says, so soft and fiercely caring it  _ hurts.  _ But most things hurt right now, and Tommy can’t focus on what the man says next. “Tommy. Tommy- can you stand?”

“I-” his voice cracks with exhaustion. His chest  _ hurts.  _ He can almost tell what’s happening. It’s painfully familiar, as something squeezes, lancing down his chest and into his ribs. Sam’s suddenly that much closer with an ungauntleted hand there to catch Tommy when he drops to the side, a puppet with its strings cut, a doll with its limbs smashed by a vindictive child, breath coming heavier and heavier and then weaker, weaker, weaker still. He feels two roughy calloused fingers press to the pulsepoint on his neck. He hears a curse. 

“I wanna go home, dad.”

For the second time in two weeks, Tommy falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOMMY IS NOT DEAD. Nor did he have another heart attack (though if you want you can see it like that.) See the name of this fic and possible side effects/treatments of heart attacks for an idea of what's going on. Only one commenter has actually hit on where I'm going with this, funnily enough.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this a bit of a gentle end, to such an intense story? Yes. Do I think it fits well? Yes, and I hope you all do too.
> 
> I cannot thank you all enough for all of your support. I have never, ever, once in my four years on this app writing, had such a large amount of people find my story. I've gotten so many kudos. So many funny bookmarks. So many comments that have frankly!!!! Made Me Want To Cry! I'm so overwhelmed by how thankful I am for all of you. 
> 
> So, wow, I really hope you all enjoy this last chapter. :)
> 
> (As this story comes to its end, though, I'm actually starting another! Arsonist's Lullaby, a sort of role-swap with Tommy and Techno. There's lots of angst, SBI dynamics, Tb2t, chaos, etc. Their personalities are the same, they're their own characters, just having had lives with different circumstances. And Tommy kicks ass. If you're interested, the link is here: 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/29823966/chapters/73378383 :)

Tommy walks through his hole-in-the-ground hovel and breathes. That’s perhaps not the proper name for it -- hovel implies squalor — and this house brings nothing but memories, good and bad. He’ll miss its dirt, somehow, for all the bad things it conjures up inside him. 

It had felt vindicating to take it back, when he’d gotten enough strength to leave Sam’s some month ago, finding Puffy about to put a sword through Bad’s neck as him and his lackeys partied Tommy’s assumed death. 

Apparently, Tubbo, Sam, Sapnap and Puffy had been too busy trying not to skewer a very restless Tommyinnit to tell the rest of the SMP he wasn’t having a funeral. Only the Antarctic Empire new, and that’s only because Sam had gone to their house to talk to Phil again. Honestly, it’d been sort of funny, eating the cake that the Eggpire citizens left in his house after they’d gotten done celebrating his death-day. Puffy had ruffled his hair and replaced his flooring while he’d sat, pulling her up to speed on his whereabouts.

But here he is. Building day. 

He never actually expected to live, when he’d passed out all those months ago, in the middle of a dispersing battlefield. Later on he’s told he almost didn’t. Tubbo tells him how he’d only heard of the fighting after Sam carried Tommy back, barking out orders, this time making Sapnap and anyone else around help him. 

(Tommy cringes a little at the thought, being so helpless, but secretly, there's something in him that is grateful to know he can be, and he won’t always be betrayed.)

But now his heart thrums safe and healthy. He hadn’t noticed just how fast it was after his heart attack, beating out of his chest with what he thought was just about a week-long panic attack. Sam’d tossed about quite a bit of mechanical lingo once Tommy’d finally woken up, things like  _ arrhythmia  _ and  _ tachycardia  _ and  _ pacemakers.  _ That’s the most surprising thing, honestly, the fact that a bit of ingenious tech had saved his life. 

(Even if Sam was the one who really did all the work.)

He doesn’t know exactly how the thing works, but it feels almost like a new set of genes. He’d been of Philza’s blood, once, heart encased in love for his family, his life, his war. He’d fallen out of sorts with nearly everything that made him  _ Tommy.  _ But now, somehow, there’s a bit of Sam within him. Perhaps it’s a bit sappy of him to say, but he’s glad it was the half-creeper hybrid who helped. 

“Hey  _ dickheads!”  _

Speaking of Sam: The man swivels, now, eyes catching Tommy and Tubbo where they stand in the house. “Are we gonna do this? You’re the one who didn’t like me sleeping in the- the  _ “dirt hut,”  _ Samuel.”

“It’s just Sam,” replies the man politely. He ducks his head to enter the house, already pulling out wood from his inventory. “And your house is about to collapse, kiddo.”

“He’s  _ right,”  _ Tubbo says, completely unhelpful, “you’ve got holes in your basement and shit. Why do you think Bad and Ant pulled up your floor so quick?” He casts an arm about. “It’s all  _ dirt!” _

Tommy squawks angrily. “Hey! That dirt is  _ historic!  _ The dirt floor stays, you bitch, and you’d better not do anything but add pretty little- pretty little fucking flowers to it!”

“Fine, fine,” Sam replies, patting his hands through the air in hollow placation. His mask has been replaced by a shorter version, only covering the bottom half of his face, and Tommy can see the grin in his eyes, the yellow-green creeper scales about his eyes crinkling with growing smile lines. “But I think it’d be best if you weren’t  _ in the house  _ while I get Nook started on it.”

So he leaves, and Tubbo follows, and they stand outside the house, chatting and waiting for Sam. Puffy and Ranboo are there already, arguing vividly, their hands gesturing and flying about. Sam leaves the house a moment later, shrugging his shoulders downward with the force of the hunch he assumes to go through the door. From inside, Tommy can see Sam Nook let out an interested warble, waving through the door. Tommy waves back.

(“When I’m around you, I feel conditioned to be your friend.”

He’d told Dream that. It had been a long time ago, accompanied quickly with a threat. He had been efficiently terrified and angry at once. He remembers it now, for a flash of a second, as he follows Ranboo up the hill with Tubbo by his side.

He has friends, now. He’s had friends for a long time, Tubbo and Wilbur and Ranboo and Techno and Quackity. They’d all been close to him at some point, in some capacity, and they’d all betrayed him as well. He’s starting to realize that betrayal, while common to a fault in this world of his, is forgivable. Then he thinks about Dream’s betrayal and acknowledges that what Tubbo did was  _ far _ less egregious, snorting.)

“What’s so funny?” Asks the boy in question, peering over. He shuffles his feet up the wooden path beneath him, ignoring Puffy and Ranboo as the two ramble on. 

Tommy just shakes his head. “Bitches. Lots of bitches.”

When they finally get up the hill, all four of them standing about the rubble of his hotel, there’s a bittersweet feeling. He stands here, safe,  _ alive,  _ with his friends and allies assembled. They stand in the shrapnel and ash of something he’d created, and it isn’t the first time. It likely won’t be the last, either, since he has no desire to stop creating. He thinks of Sam’s technology, embedded in his chest, and he thinks that he finally has the energy to try.

The man in question walks over to a piece of rebar, leveraging a foot against it with a hum. His other leg sinks halfway through a pile of detritus, but he doesn’t complain.

“We’ll build it again,” he promises, pulling something bright and yellow from his inventory. He hangs the first string of lights over that piece of broken, jagged metal, turning to look at Tommy -- and only Tommy, eyes brimming with some sort of smile -- with a nod. “But for now: yellow or blue?” 

Ranboo ends up picking out the color of the lights. He chooses a mix of both, because he says it looks like the sky is glowing, the yellow the stars, the blue the space between them. Tubbo and Tommy are in charge of retrieving the cake — and sneaking a few bites. It’s theirs anyways — and Puffy helps them find a suitable place to stick a table in the ground, glaring when any curious passerbyes eye the treat too hard. 

Neither Tubbo, Tommy, or Ranboo have had a birthday party since as far back as they can remember. For Ranboo that’s not very far, not even in his memory book. For Tommy and Tubbo it’s a decade and a half, their years too consumed by war and exile for them to celebrate them. So they try now. Puffy clears away the worst of the debris with a horse, an enderpearl, and a proclivity for broom work. Sam helps string lights up, along with a few, noiseless fireworks of his own invention — because if bombs hadn’t been hard to listen to before, they’re much worse, after everything they’d seen destroyed that day by the hotel. 

The sun in the sky starts to set. Guests trickle in. Quackity comes first, Fundy and Eret alongside him and looking a bit sheepish. Tommy, who has had more than enough experience with people trying to murder him, and trying to murder them in turn, lets them come with a huge laugh and open arms. 

(He misses the way Sam stares, for ten whole minutes, at the group, eyes stormy and dark. None of them make an effort to do anything remotely out of line for the rest of the night.)

Next comes Niki, because even if Tommy is angry as  _ hell,  _ he wants, for some reason, to make amends. She’s sheepish and miserable for her first ten minutes. Then, Ranboo offers her a slice of his birthday cake, because he knows how many children on the server have never had a proper birthday, and she bursts into tears, shoveling frosting and vanilla into her mouth. Jack Manifold can’t come for obvious reasons — his arms are not yet recovered, having to be amputated at the elbows of both sides. And Tommy doesn’t think he’s quite ready to invite the man who burnt his hotel down back into that territory. But there is, if nothing else, time. 

It’s nice. There aren’t many gifts, and there’s definitely not enough cake, and Quackity spills half the punch bottle everywhere. Sam stares at him with a murderous expression before he tells the man to scurry off, buy them a new one. Tommy and Tubbo and Ranboo run around amongst the rebar, playing some sort of ultra-dangerous game of tag. It feels like when Tommy was younger, when he’d run about in self-made explosions, pulling his friend along by hand. And again, there’s something bittersweet.

But there’s no ache in his chest, so Tommy calls it a win. 

(He knows tomorrow he’ll go back to being sour and angry at most of the people here. They’ll either get mad back, or be guilty, or be indifferent, but Tommy doesn’t care. The whole point is that if they’re going to come after him, he’s going to using them as a verbal punching bag until he knows they won’t try it again. What’s a bit of friendly hate, between long-time friends?)

The night is long. It’s cloudless, with an abundance of stars, but Tommy still remembers when there were more. He takes a break from shrieking and running around, sitting at the edge of the hotel on a particularly large piece of rubble. The metal is smooth under his hand when he runs it across, but his head is elsewhere. Tommy remembers a time with less light pollution; when the only city buildings around for miles were his.

Someone picks through the dirt behind him, a low hum in their chest as they slide down to stand beside him. Sam, eyes half-shut in contentment, smiles at him. There’s something opposite to a creeper’s hiss in his chest, low and rumbling, and with a start, Tommy realizes it’s a  _ purr.  _ Like a  _ cat.  _ Tommy just gestures for him to sit, wordlessly, marveling in the noise.

“It’s a nice night, huh?” asks the man, voice a soft affair. Tommy turns to him, knees tucked into his chest.

“It is,” he replies, in a voice not far from hoarse. He leans closer, the same as he had all those months ago when he’d awoken from a nightmare to find Sam doing the same. His head rests on Sam’s shoulder once again. And this time, arms free, Sam pulls Tommy closer with a hand to his back. For the first time in a long time, Tommy’s heart feels settled. 

(He feels regret, in his chest, that it hadn’t been sooner. That he’d lost his childhood. His life. Then, he looks up at Sam, and remembers that his childhood isn’t over yet.)

“Thinking about anything interesting?”

“Just cake. And women.”

Sam snorts. “That’s two things, Tommy.”

“You’re two things, dickhead,” replies the boy, though his voice clearly has no bite. He uncurls from his position, kicking his legs against the metal beneath him, out in the early dusks wind. Then, absentmindedly, he rubs at his sternum. Sam looks over with a look Tommy can only describe as nervous.

“Your chest doesn’t hurt, does it?” He asks, the smile suddenly gone from his eyes. 

Tommy backtracks quickly, letting out a harried laugh and raising his hands. “Woah, woah, big guy. Your- your magic pace-er things works  _ fine.  _ ‘M just all… melancholy, and shit, sometimes.” Sam lets out a groan of frustration; Tommy, a laugh. They shift back into a meshed position. They fit, Tommy thinks, better than someone with wings ever could. Then, an afterthought: 

“Thank you, Sam. I’m serious.  _ Dead  _ serious.” 

That one earns him a small, parental smack to the side. Tommy snickers and pretends to have been given a great blow, leaning backward and lamenting his own death. “Oh!” He says, hand cast across his forehead as he swoons. “Oh- oh fuck, he’s killed me! Samuel, you’ve killed me!”

“Tommy,” Sam says, disapproving, and in the sort of voice Tommy remembers Phil using with him when he was a child. He just snickers and evens out his posture, returning to his slouch as he looks back up to the sky. “Not funny.” There’s a pause, in which Sam stares at him, face with an indecipherable expression upon it. “Tommy, do you want to come and live with me?”

The question is so abrupt he just about goes falling off the back of the rebar. Sam steadies him, though, like he  _ always  _ does, being the competent man he is. Tommy lets out an odd, wheeze of a noise as the question sets in. This clearly doesn’t seem too promising, as the man starts to choke out an explanation in an instant.

“I just meant- your house is damned small, Tommy, and I know you don’t always like being near the central Dream SMP, especially not with the prison-”

“Hey, hey hey hey!” Interrupts Tommy, shushing the man with a raised hand. “I never said anything, Samuel! You- you didn’t let me answer.”

The two of them both pause. Sam in anticipation, and in clear anxiety. Tommy for dramatic effect.

“Of course I’d like to live with you, bitch,” says Tommy, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

And Sam… 

Sam’s face split into a smile, something so purely kind in his eyes that it hits Tommy like a sledgehammer. He is unaccustomed to someone caring so  _ purely  _ for children as Sam. Now, in the cool of the night, on the rebar of his building, he sniffles. Sam makes the same noise, then laughs at himself a little, poking Tommy in the side. It’s nice to see him let his emotions out. It makes Tommy feel trusted. It makes him want to do the same. 

So he does.

“Of course. You’re my dad.”

(Tubbo ruins it only a moment later. He tells Tommy to call Sam that more often because it makes the man’s face screw up all tight and excited, and then Sam’s face actually  _ does  _ do that, and the moment is gone. Tommy doesn’t care, though. He’s got cake, and friends, and his heart hasn’t hurt in months.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHHHHHHAAAHGFHSFDHFGDHFGVSDHGGV
> 
> OK! IT'S ACTUALLY DONE! 
> 
> Thank you all so much again for your support! I hope to write about Sam and Tommy again someday, too, maybe even a continuation of this fic.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo......................... kudos? Comments? silent encouragement? I plan on adding one or two more chapters to this, so I hope it's alright so far.


End file.
